I'm 31 now. Here are my thoughts.
I’m in the mood to blog today. It’s probably because I feel so melancholy and uncomfortable in my life lately. I blame it all on the staycation I took at the end of March.
I’ve always longed to take a week for myself to focus on enjoying my house and my life instead of filling all of my paid time off with lots of travel. This year I received an extra week of vacation for reaching my 5 year anniversary at work which means I could still travel the same amount and also live out my dream of a solo staycation. Folks, it was magical. Too magical. It’s now 38 days later and I’m still not ready to be back at work.
Here’s what I learned in the midst of the magic:
1. I don’t mind cleaning the house when I have the time to do it at my leisure
2. I don’t mind cooking or grocery shopping when I have time to do it at my leisure
3. I don’t mind exercising when I have time to do it at my leisure
4. I eat better when I’m left with my own pantry/refrigerator and don’t have coworkers constantly tempting me with cake/cookies/candy
5. The weekend is more relaxing and enjoyable because I’ve kept up with housework during the week
Now that I’ve seen the other side, it’s much more challenging for me to fit back into my old routine. During my week off, I felt like my life had so much more balance and I felt refreshingly stable for once. I’ve never felt like I was meant for careerdom and I feel like the older I get, the harder it becomes for me to mold myself into what I feel like society requires of me. In my experience, people become less tolerant as they get older. There is less ‘OK, I’ll go with the flow’ and more ‘No, my bedtime is 9pm. Period. End of discussion.’
Brian and I have discussed my feelings and he’s fairly onboard with me. He, too, noticed that the weekend was more enjoyable, that I was more enjoyable to be around, and that it’s delightful to come home to find his dinner ready to consume. We might be able to make it work for me to stay home in the near future but we both feel a little silly about the term ‘homemaker’. I feel like I have to have a baby before society will accept me staying home but seriously, not everyone can have babies. Like us, apparently.
I try not to care what other people think but, I do. I had a hard time telling people I was an Administrative Assistant all those years because I felt like it was a menial job that wasn’t worth mentioning; that others would think less of me for it. I was so relieved when I became an Academic Advisor because I felt like people would value it more and I wouldn’t have to dread someone asking me what I did for a living. I can only imagine that being a homemaker would cause even more dread when it came to meeting new people. But let’s be honest, I don’t meet new people very often. I’m not in college anymore, having a social life is no longer handed to me on a silver platter and who knows, maybe I’m just old and cranky enough to not care about that anymore.
All I know is that I want to simplify life. Get back to the basics. I think people were onto something when they had someone stay home to take care of the daily needs at the homestead. I understand that feminism was necessary to change how women were viewed as citizens but I think we may have lost something along the way. We all run ourselves ragged and then spend our days off trying to catch up on all the stuff we pushed aside during the work week and then we never feel truly rested. We resent our spouses for their messes and we resent our necessary chores because they are taking up our valuable time off from work.
I don’t know. Maybe I sound like an idiot and I’ll look back at this later and roll my eyes or chuckle to myself. All I know right now is that my measly little week off rocked my world and I don’t know how to recover.
I’ve always longed to take a week for myself to focus on enjoying my house and my life instead of filling all of my paid time off with lots of travel. This year I received an extra week of vacation for reaching my 5 year anniversary at work which means I could still travel the same amount and also live out my dream of a solo staycation. Folks, it was magical. Too magical. It’s now 38 days later and I’m still not ready to be back at work.
Here’s what I learned in the midst of the magic:
1. I don’t mind cleaning the house when I have the time to do it at my leisure
2. I don’t mind cooking or grocery shopping when I have time to do it at my leisure
3. I don’t mind exercising when I have time to do it at my leisure
4. I eat better when I’m left with my own pantry/refrigerator and don’t have coworkers constantly tempting me with cake/cookies/candy
5. The weekend is more relaxing and enjoyable because I’ve kept up with housework during the week
Now that I’ve seen the other side, it’s much more challenging for me to fit back into my old routine. During my week off, I felt like my life had so much more balance and I felt refreshingly stable for once. I’ve never felt like I was meant for careerdom and I feel like the older I get, the harder it becomes for me to mold myself into what I feel like society requires of me. In my experience, people become less tolerant as they get older. There is less ‘OK, I’ll go with the flow’ and more ‘No, my bedtime is 9pm. Period. End of discussion.’
Brian and I have discussed my feelings and he’s fairly onboard with me. He, too, noticed that the weekend was more enjoyable, that I was more enjoyable to be around, and that it’s delightful to come home to find his dinner ready to consume. We might be able to make it work for me to stay home in the near future but we both feel a little silly about the term ‘homemaker’. I feel like I have to have a baby before society will accept me staying home but seriously, not everyone can have babies. Like us, apparently.
I try not to care what other people think but, I do. I had a hard time telling people I was an Administrative Assistant all those years because I felt like it was a menial job that wasn’t worth mentioning; that others would think less of me for it. I was so relieved when I became an Academic Advisor because I felt like people would value it more and I wouldn’t have to dread someone asking me what I did for a living. I can only imagine that being a homemaker would cause even more dread when it came to meeting new people. But let’s be honest, I don’t meet new people very often. I’m not in college anymore, having a social life is no longer handed to me on a silver platter and who knows, maybe I’m just old and cranky enough to not care about that anymore.
All I know is that I want to simplify life. Get back to the basics. I think people were onto something when they had someone stay home to take care of the daily needs at the homestead. I understand that feminism was necessary to change how women were viewed as citizens but I think we may have lost something along the way. We all run ourselves ragged and then spend our days off trying to catch up on all the stuff we pushed aside during the work week and then we never feel truly rested. We resent our spouses for their messes and we resent our necessary chores because they are taking up our valuable time off from work.
I don’t know. Maybe I sound like an idiot and I’ll look back at this later and roll my eyes or chuckle to myself. All I know right now is that my measly little week off rocked my world and I don’t know how to recover.
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