Okay, I hate to say it but I am not always perfect. For me, and I am pretty sure I am a type A personality, this is really hard to admit. I am driven, high energy, relentless in getting to where I want to go, and obsessively organized in both my personal and my work life.However, between work, kids, marriage, pets and just life in general, sometimes a few balls drop.
Yes, I have attended a lot of field trips with my kids but I have probably missed more than I have attended. Yes, I have taken my kids for walks on White Rock Beach with ice cream but it's likely that I have shoved them into the back of my car, armed with iPods, while I show a house or townhouse on more than one occasion. Yes I have made fantastic dinners but more often than not I sling mac and cheese on the table and call it dinner.
I have missed more weekends with my family due to work than I care to admit. I love my job and this doesn't seem like a sacrifice for me but I know that my family suffers. I know that my husband fills in a lot of holes that I leave in my absence.
As I get older I find that my relationships with friends change. Where it was once a few hours out in the bar to dance and blow off steam we now sit over a single glass of wine or go for a walk and talk about kids, husbands, aging parents, and our work life.
Even the dog has cancer and needs constant medical attention, squeezed into a day that leaves little time for vet appointments.
I think, on days that I am hardest on myself, that I am getting by in a lot of things and doing none of them to my full potential. Perhaps in work I succeed the most, I let very few things slide there and I wonder what this says about me as a person, a wife, and a mother. I am a really good Realtor but is this what I want carved on my headstone when the time comes? I'm just not sure.
So, this week I have tried to take a look at myself and have come up with a list - because I really like lists - of things I need to do:
- Be kind to myself, sometimes doing the best I can is good enough. The fact that I even care about failing has to count for something. Mentally beating myself up will not change things.
- Take time, even if it's 10 minutes, to have a meaningful conversation, to color a picture, jump on the trampoline, to dance in the living room, or to pet the dog.
- Exercise. Get out there. Walk, run, play, breathe.
- Appreciate what I have, things aren't always perfect, and they certainly don't always look like the fairy tales that I was raised on, but what I have matters, is valid, and is something that I earned through a lot of luck and a lot of hard work.
- Thank myself. I work really hard and I really do believe that I make a difference. That counts for something. I am teaching my children the value of working hard. Hopefully this translates into them becoming gainfully employed adults in the future.
- Take a day off every now and then. The Real Estate world will not grind to a halt, my clients will understand and at the end of the day I will be more energized.
There is probably a lot more that I could add to this list but for now that's enough. I think my motto moving forward into the coming week will be "Be the best me that I can be" and maybe "Kiss the kids".
