Finding balance, or "me-time"

Like the word awesome, 'me-time' is a word I began using as a joke, but it's quickly worked its way into my vocabulary, despite their being very little of it in my life at the moment. Actually that's why me-time gets so much play these days. It's like sleep. It's the stuff of dreams. I'll always remember the Sartre idea that wanting is the essence of life. I believe it. I've been thinking endlessly about how to work more of the things that make me me, back into my life. I'm constantly trying to come up with strategies to carve out time for things like writing, shopping, exercise, even sex. Last week I had the hair-brained idea that I would set myself a life challenge of doing all of these things for just 10 minutes a day. 10 minutes of working on my book, 10 minutes on my exercise bike, even 10 minutes of adults-only time everyday with David. The logic behind it was that sometimes when you're just too tired to do anything, the thought of 1/2 an hour or more is just too much of a mental barrier. But 10 minutes - that's nothing, right? 10 minutes a day may not achieve much in the way of chapters written, calories burned or epic make-out sessions, but it's something, which is better than nothing, and goes some way to reconnecting with the things I need to feel like my best version of me. 

Annie Dillard's wonderful quote - How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives - is something I'm also thinking about a lot this week. When I look back at the way I spend each day, there's a lot of good, but there's also a bit of waste. For example I spend at least 10 minutes everyday reading people.com. Added up, that's over an hour a week following Reece Witherspoon's pregnancy progress and Kim and Kanye's ridiculously staged date nights. Sure, it's only 10 minutes a day and it's how I zone-out, but according to Annie Dillard, it's going to count for how I spend my life, and can I justify it? The answer feels like, no. But realistically I know that it's beyond my powers to stop myself, and besides I think I'd miss Kim and Kanye too much. Taking my silly pleasures away is not the answer, getting more sleep is unlikely and the sex thing, well it's not for want of wanting - so D and I'll have to get on top of that (sorry). But writing - this is something I know I need a serious sort of strategy for. This morning D and I discussed whether we could afford to have another babysitting session per week. A few hours from 9-1pm once a week that I could look forward to. It's funny, I used to have so much me-time. So many hours that I spent fantasizing about this life, this man, this baby, this family.