31 days || four: moving beyond work.

 {photo from Simply Seleta}

Last Monday, as I drove home from work, listening to the radio, ignoring the fact that my car’s air conditioner has stopped functioning, it hit me that I had yet another headache. These happen some days, and they’re not migraines, not blinding or mysterious. They come, I know, from spending eight and a half hours staring at a computer screen, and my hope is that one day, when I’m not chained to a desk and an office, these headaches will dissipate. Until then, I get more than a little frustrated, because it feels like the best hours of my day — the ones where I’m awake and happy and productive and most alive — are spent at work. And I just don’t think that’s fair. Not fair to my home. Not fair to my marriage. Not fair to me. 

I don’t like this American idea that our work is what defines us, that the longer our days are, the better our work ethic. I don’t like that I come home tired and head-achy, that most days I want nothing more than to put on my pajamas and crawl into bed and eat pizza and read a book or watch a movie. I don’t like that I have five days I devote to other people, to deadlines and articles, to phone calls and Word documents, but I only have two days I devote to me, to my husband, to our home, to my hobbies. 

It’s exhausting, this daily 8-to-5 ritual, and I don’t feel like I’ve figured out the always-elusive balance. I can’t figure out how to have enough energy to last me from 7 in the morning until 11 at night. I don’t know how to read the books I love and clean out the closets and cook healthy meals and carry on conversations with my husband without crashing. 

I don’t know these things, but I do know this: My job is not as important as my marriage. It is not my life. My dreams and my desires are not wrapped up in what I do every day at the office. And because of that, I’ve got to move past it. I’ve got to make the time and have the energy not to do everything — because we can’t do everything — but to do something. To be more than just a shadow of myself by the time I kick off my heels and put down my purse. 

Sure, I think a night in our pajamas with takeout on the couch is pretty great. But it shouldn’t be happening every night. Life is too short for that. Life is too great for that. 

This week, I’m trying to be more awake and more present when I open my front door. I’m trying to move beyond my day job, trying to embrace and celebrate the life I lead at home. 

I’m not a fan of the five-days-on, two-days-off system we’ve got going on right now, but let’s face it: That’s probably not changing any time soon. I can’t control the system, but I can control how I respond to it. So I’m going to try to celebrate these precious hours given to me at the end of each day, because they, too, are blessing, and I’m tired of leaving them out.