Turns out, I am an expert in accidental teaching.

 But not the good kind, unfortunately. 

This morning I am trying to set out a weekly menu, write out a shopping list, and synchronise calendars, because we have a lot of people, with a lot of stuff, and my working memory is rubbish. Caffeine and weirdness will only carry me so far, so I have to do this stuff. 

My desk is in the corner of the main room of our house. It's a convenient spot, next to the bookshelf, with plenty of room on the wall above it for inspirational bits and bobs. 

Unfortunately, I seem to have communicated the message that if I am visible, I am available for ANYTHING, EVERYTHING, AT ANY TIME. 

I have headphones in, and still - they try to ask me questions. I have visible evidence of work happening, and still they ask me questions like; 

-how do I spray cooking spray on this pan?

-is this mixed?

Clearly, the boundary skirmishes rage on, but that is fine, and I shall tell you why.

For years, I have heard the message from ALL of the people in my life - 'you can't pour from an empty cup', 'put on your own oxygen mask first', 'self-care is not selfish' . 

For the first time in my life I think I might truly understand what that looks like. 

It's hard to put your own needs first when you have spent a lifetime programming yourself to the opposite. Yes, it feels uncomfortable, icky and even wrong. 

I had a haircut. I went out to dinner with a friend, and then out to lunch with another friend. I took time to go for a walk. It feels weird to put things which directly benefit only me in front of things which only indirectly benefit me. 

I love a tidy, organised, clean home. Yet I don't really love cleaning. I've tried to reframe it, to make it into a weird kind of self-care, but it doesn't fill me up, or charge my battery. It's also a never-ending process, because while I'm making things clean, I have a household of people making things dirty. I love these people, I am thankful for these people - but they do provide a certain amount of job security as a stay at home wife/mother.

I'm finding the transition from staying at home to working outside the home extremely challenging, because in making this transition, our dynamic has to change.People have to be willing to take on some of the things I've been doing for years. It's not as simple as "things just won't get done" because we can't live that way. I'm talking about an equitable division of household tasks, because there are six people living here, and not just the adults. 

I am willing to delegate, and even accept that other people may have different standards, different methods. But thus far, my efforts at delegation result in things not happening at all. This is where we are stuck, and it is frustrating. 

The other adult in our house is extremely noise-averse, and would prefer to just do the things himself, because it turns out when you ask children to do work, they can make an unearthly amount of noise. While this may get the job done, it doesn't move us toward the goal of equitable division of labour, and it also sets up a dynamic in which I am the cruel and evil queen making the children into servants. 

This post took an unexpected sort of turn, and I don't really have an ending today - these are just the thoughts I've got today. Now I have to go finish that shopping list, put on my "leaving the house" clothing, and go to the shops. 

Lots of work to do today, because while I've been doing all this self-care, the children have been providing job security. Lots of it. 

Love from me to y'all,

Sarah