Whew...

My first week back at work after 2 months, and guess what I’m still learning…yup…how to surrender! While I thought I suffered from a lack of sleep over the last few months, reality really hit this week. See, when I was on maternity leave, I could go back to sleep in the mid-morning. Now when my bookas ( my baby)  wakes up at 5am, we have to stay up and get ready to venture out so I can be at work by 7:15. So All week I’ve been getting about 4 to 5 hours of sleep.   
   I thought I would spring into things and fully become the old me... Work, home, and gym, after eating well all day and drinking plenty of water. NOPE! Instead, it’s 3 cups of coffee a day, a glass of wine at night, no gym at all, and take out for breakfast, sometimes skipping lunch or sucking down something like Taco Bell so I can catch-up on my lesson planning. ( I brought water to work every day and drank only half of it. Totally not my style, I usually drown myself in water).
     After only stopping to pee all day, I leave work at 2:30 and it’s off to home to do chores, pick up my son from practice, help my nephew with homework, figure out what the hell we are having for dinner, and spend time with my baby (who misses mommy. ) I’m tired just writing about it. My first instinct was to trip, flip, and breakdown. Stamp my feet and say…I can’t do this!!!!!. But something as simple as a hot shower at the end of the day or India Aire in the morning changes all of that and puts things into perspective. There is no longer an old me. So what do I do? I re-invent myself to adapt to my new life. The inner me, the dreamer, the poet, the dancer, the make it happener (okay not a word) are still the essence of who I am, but I have to re-adjust.



I decided to just survive this first week, get into the hang of things, get the timing right, figure out what works and what doesn’t, so that next week I can not just survive but actually feel accomplished when I‘m done. This meant looking past laundry that needed to be done, leaving the baby’s pj’s on the bed until I get home (instead of feeling like they had to be put in the hamper), and being okay with leaving the flat iron in the bathroom, or the iron on the kitchen table. The world won’t end if the house is out of order until I come home.

Now that it’s Thursday and I feel like I made it, I’m ready for some more re-adjustments. So next week I will replace two of those coffees with decaf green tea, and find time to drink water while I’m at work besides just at lunch. Besides I'm sure my students won't mind if I stop talking for a few minutes.  I pledge to get in some exercise which I know is my best source of energy, at least once a day. Even if it’s just some jumping jacks while waiting for my hot water to boil! I went shopping last night to buy me some healthy snacks and lunch…no more skipping meals! That’s all I’m asking of myself. Just a little bit of my time to improve my quality of life, be my best self and more importantly keep my sanity in my new crazy life.