Make the Breaks

 

 

I am pretty spent, and not just because as usual we've back-loaded summer vacation so haven't had any extended time off yet. Running a business and being a dad of three, free time does not fall into your lap. If you don't make space for breaks, you will constantly go and eventually fall apart.

I know this, have had people I respect exhort me in this, and know the importance of setting boundaries and seeking out rest. And yet still I go go go.

Some of it is that I need to fully commit to taking breaks. I can tell I haven't done so because things come up, and if you're serious about making space, then when things come up you still make the time for self-care. I urge those around me but I myself fail often at this.

But, honestly, sometimes it seems darn near impossible. I will blur some of the details for privacy's sake, but let me paint three pictures of times when I made plans for me time, and emergency kid situations intervened and blew up those carefully laid plans. And, by the way, each of my kids is featured in exactly one example:

* Long day at the end of a long week, did all my house chores and did some reading and was about to call it an early night for shut-eye, when I got a call and instantly had to leave the house to get someone.

* Took the day off from work, dropped Asher off at school, took the train to NYC, rented a bike, and was literally cycling to my heart's content in Central Park, not a care in the world and feeling rejuvenated, when I got a text about one of our kids and instantly had to fire off a dozen to a handful of people in response.

* Asher waking me up multiple night in a row had my body breaking down, so I took a very rare sick day from work and was trying to sleep things off before a last-minute doctor's appointment, when I got a call and had to go pick someone up immediately.

Where do parents find a break? Answer: they make the breaks. Yet some days it seems that try as I might, I'm not given the space to take it. I know some day they'll be grown and I'll miss it all, even the chaos. But honestly, some days I'm just trying to hold on until then.