I’m sitting at a coffee house listening to one of the many playlists that Hubby has made from our digital library of music. It’s a chill mix; one I like to listen to when contemplating life.
It’s been a long time since Hubby & I just hung out at a coffee house, sipping warm lattes and surfing the web. For me, it provides the downtime I need in order to focus on writing something … anything.
Life. I might as well talk about what life has been for me lately. It seems it’s all about work during the weekdays; especially since I work about an average of 45-50 hours a week. By the time I get home on the weekdays, I’ve got little energy to do more than eat dinner and watch some TV with Hubby.
Weekends are different. I take my weekends seriously, in the fact that I like to relax and do things I like. Like sleep in. Read. Catch up on recorded TV shows. Go to the movies. I’m hoping to add writing back on that list, as I want to continue on with this blog.
I know I’m lucky to have the time to do these things on the weekend because most of my counterparts don’t have the same luxury. Facebook friends talk about how their weekends are filled with kid-related activities; things I know they’re proud of sharing (rightly so!).
However, after almost three years (has it been that long?!) of accepting a child-free life and speaking openly about it, I’ve now begun to hear the phrase “You’re so lucky” more often. As in, “You’re so lucky you don’t have kids to wake you up on weekends.” Or, “You’re so lucky that your lives don’t revolve around your kids’ schedules.”
I don’t know how to take that. On one hand, it’s true … all of it. Yet the other hand holds those small pieces of my broken heart that still mourns the fact that I don’t have any children.
Then I think, “Do they really feel that way? Or are they just saying that to make me feel better?” I once had someone told me that I look so much younger than I do because I don’t have kids. It’s statements like that, that have me doubting the sincerity of some people.
I know it shouldn’t matter; that I should just let the words roll off my shoulder. And for the most part, they do. It should … it’s been just about three years, right? It’s just once in a while I still feel those small bits of my heart that long to have children.
So that’s my life these days. Work during the weekdays. Play during the weekends. And every so often, contemplate what my life would be like if I did have kids.
I hear ya. I often say similar things. But like you, at the end of the day and if the time was different and earlier in life, we probably would trade that ‘free time’ and have it filled with ‘family time’. Right now it’ll be ‘our’ time. Here’s to 2013 and beyond! Mayan disaster averted. Fiscal Cliff delayed. There is a bright side. 🙂
Has it really been 3 years? Glad to see writing high on your priority list.
Also glad to see you writing again. 🙂 And I hear you on being busy and tired (and getting semi-snide comments from parents about how “it must be nice…”). My week sounds very similar to yours. I don’t work a lot of overtime (thankfully), but my job can be very stressful at times (year end = November/December in particular), and when you throw in the commute, it’s an 11 or 12-hour day most days, from the time I walk out of the house until I walk back in again. I spend most of my Saturday mornings & afternoons catching up on housework & laundry. It may be different from a parent’s week, but it’s tiring too — just a different kind of busy & tired. 😉