The Curse Of Trying To Do It All

I’m not quite sure how I’ve got to this point, in actual fact, I have been preaching since I started blogging that you time is important and about how you shouldn’t forget who you are yet here I am, sat almost a year on worn out from simply trying to do it all and being on top of everything. But how do we get to this point? How do us Mums end up trying to do it all?

Forgetting About Myself

I think the issue may have kicked in once Jake began pre-school. The introduction of routine has been a shock to the system and being there on time, making a packed lunch (a healthy, does jam count as bad in others eyes and will I get judged for a fruit shoot type lunch), juggling errands between drop off and pick up as well as still doing fun activities have all taken their toll. Add the introduction of work, not just happily writing the odd blog or two, actual real writing work which needs my undivided attention which has deadlines and I have suddenly found myself in a cycle I didn’t think was possible. I have forgotten about me!

 

Busy, Busy

I am so busy seeing to the house, to my child, to the pets and ensuring that everything runs smoothly that I have let my own well-being slip and with that a little bit of my sanity. Why, as Mum’s, do we do this to ourselves? Sorry Dad’s but I say Mum’s because I believe we have a bigger tendency to do this than men do. Take my husband, for example, he works extremely hard all week long, he has a long drive and a demanding job, yet he still always makes time for himself at some point. No, it may not be as often as he would like but tiredness and responsibilities take over there I’m afraid, but he will never miss a football night and he loves meeting with friends when he can. He is switched on to making himself have chill-out time and can also easily switch off to the jobs that may need doing around the house. Me, on the other hand? I can’t switch off. The jobs are always niggling away, if I can see them I need to get them done. And being a stay at home Mum plus a Mum who also works from home equals the perfect recipe for never, ever leaving your work behind.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a stay at home Mum, I am really enjoying having a new focus again but I need to learn to let a few things go now in order to remain sane! I have been acting out the typical trying to be the ‘perfect’ Mum role and let’s be honest, we all know she doesn’t exist!

 

We Can’t Achieve It All

I can’t achieve the home I had pre-child let alone the show home look so I need to realise that clean is ok, tidy may just have to wait another 16 years or so. I also need to learn to drop my standards in certain areas in order to maintain a better work/life balance but mostly I need to remember that life is too short to keep stressing. A couple of years ago I made sure I made plenty of time for me yet somehow in the space of just over a year this has gone completely out the window. I expect I’m not the only one who is a little bit guilty of this?

It’s so funny how I never set out to become one of ‘those Mums’ but I have somehow morphed into one who is now stuck on some parenting hamster wheel just going round and round and not actually getting anywhere. Each week I hoover, I clean, I drive back and forth to pre-school, I walk the dog, I load and unload the bloody dishwasher over and over and over; and what exactly am I getting out of it all? Tired, that’s what! I am frickin’ tired all the god damn time. I have dry hands, I have more grey hairs, I have humongous bags and my skin is washed out. Do you know what I want to do? I want to have a spa day, I want to get my nails done, I want a killer massage, I want some quiet time, in a room, alone, silence. Oh, and I want about a weeks worth of sleep… That may just have to remain a dream!

Mum’s if you are nodding along to this let’s make a promise not only to ourselves but to each other. We all need to stop trying to do it all. We need to start making promises to ourselves that we will make more time for us, promise that we will take up that hobby we have always wanted to try and a promise that we will stop always putting ourselves last because the family cannot function with one wonky cog now can it?!

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