It’s only 24 hours – Mindful and Meditative Mondays #13

The day has finally come. My three-week vacation from work, the likes of which I have never taken (not counting maternity leave, which any Mom knows, cannot be labeled as a vacation from work) is ending.  I usually have a slight case of the Mondays coming off a weekend, and an even bigger one coming off of a longer break, but this one is pretty epic.

Say Hello To Sadness

I absolutely needed the three weeks for many reasons.  First and foremost, I was burnt from a long year at work and needed a major breather. As a highly sensitive person, who deals with teenagers on a daily basis, I needed to decompress from absorbing their often chaotic emotions for the better part of a year.  I had company coming from England and Kentucky and wanted to give my time to them, as well as spend a good amount of time with the little monkey. I also built in some time right before returning to work where I assumed I wouldn’t have much going on and could have some “me” time.

Most things went according to plan, however this pregnancy has me so zapped that I didn’t fulfill my fun mom fantasy of taking the little one to do a billion cool things on our days together (not counting our vacation I did manage bowling twice, and the library…that’s cool, right??) I can only think that this will serve to get her used to the fact that Mommy’s attention will be divided before long and she’ll need to understand that.  I did manage to get a massage, have my nails done and write more than I have since I found out I was expecting. All good things, just not as much as my high expectations…well…expected.

So why do I do this? Why do I get cranky, and look at what I didn’t do instead of all the things I did? Why does my anxiety ratchet up ten notches the night before returning to work?  It’s beyond frustrating because I know many people would give their left pinky to be able to take three days off much less three weeks, but as I said, I’ve got high expectations.

I also think that these types of moods serve another purpose.  Just like Sadness from Inside Out (which is really a must-see along with the short Lava  that comes before it) these fluctuations are valuable tools – catalysts for important milestones to occur.  We can’t have the good without the (perceived) bad – even the little monkey chose Sadness as her favorite character because she was soft and cuddly.  For me, this epic case of the Mondays has reminded me that I need to embrace these feelings (as she embraced the character), to be in the moment, to look at all the wonderful things I did in the last three weeks (post to come!) and to remember the all-important words, “this too shall pass.” It’s been a bit of a mind adjustment for me – one that I needed to enter into the new school year.

I’d love to keep writing but I need to be up extra early to get the monkey off to summer camp and myself off to work for the first time since June…so for now I’ll leave you with this:

Mindful and Meditative Mondays #13

Have a great week everyone 🙂