{"id":5810,"date":"2017-09-29T00:02:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T06:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=5810"},"modified":"2017-09-29T00:02:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T06:02:04","slug":"give-yourself-permission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/give-yourself-permission\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Yourself Permission"},"content":{"rendered":"

For six warp-speed hours every week, my youngest son is in preschool. He\u2019s been my constant companion for the last four years, so I\u2019m protective of this time alone. I typically start adding to my \u201cNext Preschool Day\u201d agenda before the current one ends. But I found myself without a plan one random Tuesday not long ago. With two confused hands on the steering wheel, I stared out the windshield in shock. What should I do? Where should I go? <\/em><\/p>\n

Low level “Don\u2019t waste this precious time” panic set in.<\/p>\n

I enjoy time to write, but I bucked against the thought of going to the same old coffee shop, the one I can practically throw a stone to from my driveway. A small roast-their-own-beans place I\u2019d never been to popped into my head. I\u2019ve heard the coffee is excellent.<\/em> It\u2019s only a few miles away.<\/p>\n

Give yourself permission<\/em>, said a voice in my head.<\/p>\n

So I did. With the flick of the wrist, I switched on my blinker and made a right hand turn towards the destination.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

We resided in a small third floor condo in a building full of young professionals six hours away from any family. My son was four months old. My daughter, two and a half years. It was freezing, a New Year, and I had to bundle everyone up to take my dog out whenever she had to pee. I was tired, drained by all the physical demands of a baby and a toddler, had zero time alone, and felt as if I was losing myself.<\/p>\n

You know how they say drowning is silent? Well, I felt like this was the part right before. I was flailing, as if sensing imminent danger, knowing my body would soon be too physically spent to do anything but slip under the surface in a sea of diapers and tears and let the four walls of my tiny home envelop over me. I was melting into my life.<\/p>\n

One night, talking with my husband, I told him how desperately I felt like I needed some help. I wanted to feel solid again, even if only for a few hours a month.<\/p>\n

Through inquiry and interviews, I found someone to watch our kids for a few hours every other Friday.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to tell you that I fed my soul with books, friends, massages, and writing. But writing was only a dream back then and being alone was the extent of my self-care capabilities. All I really wanted was to walk at a normal pace without lugging a bulky car seat or run an errand without breastfeeding in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I don’t remember much about what I did on those Fridays, except for getting sushi and eating it with a book next to me on a picnic bench in the park.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting across from a woman as we talk about getting time away from our families. She\u2019s an empty-nester and although my kids are growing up quickly, we still fall solidly in the “young family” category. I ask her if she ever spent a weekend away from her kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. But I always wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what?\u201d she says, \u201cI have a friend who used to go away regularly when her kids were young. She always seemed so refreshed afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

A half mile down the road after I\u2019ve decided to go to the new coffee shop, I slam into a wall of blazing red tail lights. Stuck between crossroads and turn-offs, I watch my precious preschool time tick ever-so-tauntingly away. I\u2019ve gone 400 feet in the last 38 minutes.<\/p>\n

Committed, I cautiously drive past the orange cones and men in yellow vests to sit through another four lights to end up at this coffee shop. I open the door and walk on the echoing yellow laminate tiles past the roasters to the counter. The walls are bare. There isn\u2019t any music. There are four industrial-style steel tables for two shimmied up against an empty, acrid orange colored wall. Besides myself and the woman behind the counter, the shop was empty. This wasn\u2019t what I had in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm. A small coffee, please … to go.\u201d I drank it on the way to back to pick up my son from preschool.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Today during my preschool alone time, I plopped my purse down in an empty chair and placed my laptop next to my latte in the coffee shop two seconds away from my house. At home I have laundry to fold and bathrooms to clean, but I\u2019m learning to give myself permission to take time for myself.<\/p>\n

Getting a break from the routine, to do what I like, is not selfish. It\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we give ourselves permission and we feel as if we\u2019re saving our souls while we eat spicy tuna on a sunny day, reading a book off the Time\u2019s best seller list. We return to our life feeling rested and refreshed.<\/p>\n

But sometimes we give ourselves permission only to end up in a traffic jam and kick ourselves for not sticking with the normal routine. Giving yourself permission doesn\u2019t guarantee a perfect day.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s in the practice of giving ourselves permission that we learn to know right where we belong.<\/p>\n

This article was previously posted on Coffee + Crumbs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

Sonya Spillmann is a nurse by training and a writer at heart. She is a motherless mother from the DC area who writes for\u00a0Coffee+Crumbs<\/a>. You can follow her on her blog\u00a0spillingover.com<\/a>\u00a0and on Facebook.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For six warp-speed hours every week, my youngest son is in preschool. He\u2019s been my constant companion for the last four years, so I\u2019m protective of this time alone. I typically start adding to my \u201cNext Preschool Day\u201d agenda before the current one ends. But I found myself without a plan one random Tuesday not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":5855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,117],"tags":[256,54,55,56,1250,797,70,684],"class_list":["post-5810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-honestly","tag-mama","tag-mom","tag-motherhood","tag-permission","tag-routine","tag-self-care","tag-time"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}