I've somehow managed to organise my life so I get a lot of time alone. It's something I didn't have so much when I was teaching full time and being a mother and a wife, and I ended up burning out big time so that I don't think I could ever go back to full time teaching, or full time work, ever again, unless something happened to Jamie and I was forced to. I'm grateful every day that he picks up the lack here and goes to work so we can live the life we live - modest, yes, but also one where we're not on the poverty line. Comfortable, they say. We feel the pinch, but we are doing okay.

I was thinking about that a lot today as I got into projects around the house. I've been busy surfing all week so I come home quite energised and relaxed, and thus usually enjoy the one or two other tasks I take on - grocery shopping, gardening, tidying the house.

Today there was no surf and it rained all morning so I thought I'd do a lot of the little jobs I wanted to do, such as a mushroom grow, picking the quinces and getting the ingredients for a quince tart for my son's birthday on the weekend, getting straw for the chooks and so on. As I say to Jamie, a lot of these jobs can't actually WAIT, though he thinks they can. It's as someone said - if you don't plant a walnut tree, in twenty years time you won't have walnuts.

And we won't have vegetables, the chickens will get out over the fence I haven't fixed, and we won't have mushrooms for tea and so on.

By 11 am I felt really stressed. Every time I walked past anywhere I saw another job to do. The garlic needed planting, and two huge trays of seedlings that were starting to wilt. I'd run out of micropore tape and needed to go up the shops for that and a few other things. The fridge was a mess and things needed emptying and wiping. The dishwasher needed unpacking. The pine core storages was getting low and I wanted to duck up to the reservoir to collect some more. I had picked some mushrooms and needed to make soup. The kitchen was a mess. I had to tidy out the chicken coop. And that's only half of it.

To think I am only dealing with MYSELF. Imagine if I had to answer to anyone.

I really, really wanted to check out - to read a book on the couch or do a yoga nidra, or worse, watch Binge (I'm on Season 2 of Big Little Lies). Worse, because day TV is evil and only there for when you're sick, because what kind of slovenly creature are you because there's shit to be done and what would people think?.

Even with all this alone time to relax and rejuvenate I was putting deadlines and restrictions on my own life and that was upping my anxiety just like being at work.

I love being alone - like, really love it. I sleep in a separate room to my husband because I love it so much. It's how I recharge. I'm so hypersensitive to other people's energy that if I'm around them too much I feel anxious, unsettled and stressed. Not so much with family, but yes, even then. So 'me' time is really that - just not being around people.

Still, it doesn't equate, always, to happiness. Sometimes I just create all this shit that pressures us anyway. We're good at that, us human beings. We create stresses even if there aren't any.

Seriously, being me is hard work. I like it, don't get me wrong. But I'm tricky.

I wish I was psychologically capable of having a high earning career, or able to deal with lots of people as I do love them, I do. I wish I could juggle things like I used to
I wish I wasn't wired like this. It does make for a lonely life at times.

But I do get a lot of 'me' time. Forest bathing. Surfing. Yoga. And right now, in the bath, finishing this post on my phone so I can close my eyes and listen to the birds and feel some peace for a bit, shut my brain down for a little bit and give me a rest from me. I'm hard work sometimes.

You'd need some me time if you hung out with me too.

With Love,

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