A Week Of Opportunities

Today is the first day of spring break for the kids, and this is my first divorced spring break.

It’s also the first time I won’t see my kids for seven consecutive days because this year they will be spending the break with their dad.

It would be hard if they were going somewhere far away. 

But it’s even harder because they are only three and a half miles away from me.

So close, and so far.

It would be easy to let my mind spiral out of control.

It would be easy to focus on all that I am missing.

But that would also be a waste of a week.

A waste of opportunities.

A waste of possibilities.

So instead, I’m taking advantage of everything that I can.

I’m focusing on what I can control rather than what I can’t.

I’m doing all those things I never had the time or ability to do when the kids were little and I wished I just had a couple minutes to myself.

I’m doing all those things I wished I could do in the middle of the pandemic when all I wanted was a little bit of space.

I finally have some space.

I FINALLY HAVE SOME SPACE!!!!

So I’m not going to take it for granted.

You know what I did today?

I lit a candle and placed it on my coffee table in the middle of the living room.

It’s been there all day!!!!

Nobody blew it out, nobody knocked it over, nobody set the house on fire.

This may seem silly, but there was a long, long time where I couldn’t light a candle in my house.

I’M LIGHTING ALL THE FUCKING CANDLES THIS WEEK.

Here’s what else I want to do:

• Read a whole book
• Go to the beach (it will be cold but I’m still gonna go)
• Drive around my new favorite town (I’ll write a blog post about that one)
• Clean my office
• Hang the pictures up that have been on the ground leaning against a wall since I moved in
• Make a meal plan template
• Mindlessly watch TV
• Lounge in bed for at least half a day
• Try out a couple new recipes
• Make a bunch of freezer meals for busy weeknights  
• Go through the three boxes of pictures sitting in my closet and put them into the many empty photo albums I have
• take a nap
• take another nap
• go for a nice long hike
• start playing piano again
• finish a jigsaw puzzle

Will I do all those things?

No.

But maybe I’ll do a few of them.

Or maybe I’ll just totally chill out.

Who knows.

It doesn’t matter what I do.

What matters is how I approach the week.

I’ve spent so much time focusing on other people over the last sixteen years.

I deserve a week of focusing on myself.

And you know what?

My kids deserve a mom who is able to do that for herself, too.