Taking a break
I wonder what it would be like to have home be a refuge from work. I spent a decade as a Stay At Home Mom. Home and family was my work. Now I’m a Work From Home Mom. Again my work is all in my house. I use the different types of work to give me breaks. I take a break from business stuff by taking care of Mommy or house stuff. I take a break from Mommy stuff by doing business or house stuff. I don’t often need a break from house stuff because I don’t do it often enough to get really tired of it. (This is a mistake, by the way. having the house a mess is depressing.) In theory this rotation works, but the reality is that sometimes I feel like a cartoon character sitting dizzily on the floor while the different types of work circle my head like tweeting birds.
Yesterday I left my house. This is not unusual. I run all sorts of errands on a daily basis. What was different is that I had no agenda other than “get out of the house.” I went to the library. I wandered the stacks, picked a few books, then sat down and read for two hours. I could feel the tension unwind inside. People wandered by my reading spot, but not one of them needed anything from me. There was no work nearby that I could just do “real quick.” If I wanted to do any work, I had to walk out of the library and drive for 10 minutes. It was a lovely, lovely break. When I got back home, I liked my house again. I was glad to see Howard and the kids. I felt better about everything.
I’ve been thinking that I did not need to schedule breaks into my life the way that I used to, because now the kids are all gone for school on a daily basis. But I need to remember that rotation of work is not the same as a real break.