The balancing act

Parenthood took my life by storm in 2009. I had worked with children for 12 years and assumed (oh so innocently) that I was going to breeeeeeze into motherhood like a natural. Oh my, how wrong I was.

One of my misguided assumptions was that, at 37, I had lived life and had sewn all of my wild oats. That I would happily give up my independence because I had waited until I was old enough and mature enough not to need any personal time or space. I found out over the course of the next year and a half or so that, in fact, there is no ending point to the need for "me" time. I discovered that I am not a whole person when I don't have alone time.  I don't understand people that say they don't like to be alone with their thoughts, I love it and I missed it dearly. The sleepless nights and coming to terms with the realization that my free time was now a mere fraction of what used to be was the most difficult transition into parenthood for me.

Instead of moving forward with life, I admit it, I sulked, I ate and sulked that I couldn't run to the shops at the drop of a hat. I now had to plan my nights out and I had a packed agenda for every single second of every day, no nights or weekends off. When I decided that it was time to lose weight I jumped into it with both feet. I was excited by the challenge but the exercise part was still a problem, when do I find the time? I started getting up at 5 a.m, an ungodly hour. I was determined that this was what it would take for me to fit the exercise in. An amazing thing happened, I was out on the road, alone, with my thoughts. For the first time since the baby was born I felt that familiar happiness at being on my own...what heaven.

Parenting is really about multitasking. With my C25K I am getting myself on track health-wise AND, bonus, getting the alone time I have been desperate for WIN-WIN