It’s a holiday weekend, y’all!
Every time I have a holiday weekend, I get so excited, because I look at the three days and think: Look at all this time I have to spend however I want! Almost every time at the end of the weekend, I’m still tired, all the tasks I planned to accomplish aren’t done, and I don’t know why. I’m a very good time keeper, so I can account for where the time went, but somehow the weekend just didn’t measure up to my expectations.
It’s disappointing, right? I almost feel like I’ve wasted the three day weekend in some way – like I wasn’t a very good steward of my time. So I chastise myself for missing this opportunity to catch up and promise myself that next time I’ll be more organized and use the time more carefully.
Not this time.
If you’ve been reading the past couple of posts, you know that the Parks family has been experiencing some turbulence. To be more accurate, Perry and I have been juggling more chaos than normal. And when I was running so hard at the hospital the other night that I’d logged 20 phone calls in the first hour and a half of my night and realized I was starving at 11 pm because I’d missed dinner, I knew I’d better take a break or I’d start to break down myself (catch a cold, have a bad headache, toss and turn at night because I’m worried about everything that has to be done). So when I saw that this weekend was a long one, I started right down that same thought pattern that I’d calm the chaos and catch up. That always sounds good in my head! But I’m learning, and when my brain reminded me of how that’s turned out in the past I decided that I was going to do this weekend differently.
The first I decided was to have no agenda. After I finish the to-dos that I’ve committed to (writing this post, grocery shopping for the third time this week, finishing a learning module for my exam in October, wash the sheets), I’m done. No laundry, no medical charting, no big activities (Perry is trying to plan a marathon lunch/skate/pizza day on Sunday, but I think he needs a break as much as I do, so we’ll see). My to-do list for the weekend looks more like a wish list of relaxing activities: Sit by the lake, read my library books, maybe get in a last swim before they close the pool.
Does that sound impossible? There’s so much to do, it feels like I ought to take the opportunity to get something done! Clean something, write something, organize something. But I’m not going to do it. Here’s how I’m going to resist the temptation and actually take a break. I also struggle with the idea that rest = lazy. If I’m resting, then I’m not working as hard as I can and should, and someone else will suffer because I was resting when I should have been working. That’s nonsense, of course. No human is designed to work constantly without a break. Even our bodies are created with the need for sleep, not to mention the space and clarity that rest gives our minds. But old patterns of thinking die hard – but it’s my goal this weekend to chip away at that mentality!
My chair set up by the little lake in our neighborhood – it’s a mini getaway!
I started with talking to the kids. They are one excuse I can use to miss my break. I can use their messiness and need to eat as a reason to spend my whole time at home trying to pick up and keep after them to keep the house manageable. I can spend each day working from meal to meal, trying to create different foods and cleaning up in between and the whole day all of a sudden is gone. So I talked to them and let them know that they have some responsibility on how the weekend goes. I’m going to have things here in the house to have “fun” meals, but they will be part of making those happen. Otherwise, it’ll be almond butter and jelly and whatever they can scrounge up for dinner. If they want me to help them do something a little fun and different, they’ll keep their stuff under control. The difference this time is, if they don’t, then I won’t do the extra stuff.
Then, I spent this week catching up at work and at home. I did extra laundry, caught up on work email (as much as that’s possible), and cleaned up as much of my patient results as was possible. But the most important decision was to leave room to rest. If I plan the whole weekend out, in the end I’ll just run from thing to thing and feel exhausted, raggedy and frustrated at the end of the weekend when I have to go back to work. I also am not going to leave the time completely free, because lack of any planning leads to disorder. Something will suck up the rest time if I have no plan for it. So there will be time to sleep, time to read, time to sit at the lake.
Some of my literary selections…
You may be reading this and thinking that it’s all very well for me to take a break, but you just can’t do it. And maybe you can’t take the whole weekend off. But can you set aside a morning or even a few hours to do something that helps you feel rested? Only you know the answer. Here’s what I know: There is always something that needs to be done, and I often assign urgency to those things that isn’t necessary. Do I have to do everything that needs doing right now? Nope – I just think I do. So I can think differently and act differently. I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. So here’s to less insanity and more rest this weekend. Happy Labor Day weekend!
Do you have a hard time taking a break for rest? How are you going to spend your holiday weekend? Please share in the comments below!
