Rhythms

And breathe…

Readers, I have been BUSY lately. I have been busy like I haven’t been for many years. It’s all my fault of course, but it is not in my nature to fill out my days with doing-things. If I was asked to define myself in a few words, I would always say that I am a being person rather than a doing person. I never require of myself to always be active. I don’t define myself by how busy I am, how many people I see, how many activities I or my children are involved in. I like to sit down to read or blog or watch TV, and I rarely view it as wasted time. It’s all a part of my regime of self-care and basic enjoyment of life. Which all sounds nice and all, but when combined with my natural laziness, makes for an interesting combination. But I digress.

The reason I’m mentioning this is that being busy in the way that my life has been in the last four months is really quite foreign to me and in many ways, I am still trying to adjust. I haven’t yet found a way to do life that doesn’t make me feel like any moment I stop comes with the sounds of brakes and a shout of ‘what the hell just happened to my day/week/month/entire life?’.

Looking back, it is not the house move that has led to all these feelings of whiplash but the combination of going back to work and studying. I had NO IDEA what becoming a student would mean after over fifteen years since being released from school schedules but blimey, that’s been a shock to the system. I have a newly found appreciation for mature students who juggle a full-time job with the pressure of studies but most of all I bow before anyone who does all of this – with children. To be honest, I don’t know how I’m going to manage it. I was under the impression that I had up to four years to undertake my studies but I have since found out that I have been enrolled on an 18-month course. On the one hand, this is good news. I need to be under some level of pressure to push me forward and keep my motivation up, plus there’s an end in sight in the near future. On the other hand, as soon as something happens in my personal life, it affects my ability to study and I feel the repercussions immediately. If a child is ill, or if they just refuse to go to bed, I lose valuable time, the only time I have, and it is out of my control. My first assignment deadline was Friday a week ago and I spent the previous three weeks researching and writing every evening as well as every spare moment during the day. I must have clocked over 20 hours a week of studies on top of a full day at work or with the children, staying up past 11.30 pm most nights in order to feel like I had at least some handle of my assignment brief (which, if you’re interested was on business environment, so think internal and external business responsibilities, competition policy, PESTEL analysis, the World Trade Organization, taxes and the like – riveting stuff but mostly, stuff I knew nothing about before I started). I don’t do well if I get under 7 hours of sleep, and I was starting to feel it.

In the meantime, there are things I would like to write about on the blog, about the move, our lovely new neighbours, our organisational challenges, the little things we have done to make it home, the local French group I have started to attend with the girls, but I just haven’t got the time or the energy. It makes me feel bad, because I do love what I have achieved here. I am really proud of some of the posts I was able to share in 2014 and I have been in a good place both in terms of inspiration and motivation in the last year. And then boom, it’s all fallen down a rabbit hole and I don’t know when it will come back out. One of the things I’d wanted to do was to take part in a 31 day challenge in October, which I should be starting to plan now but considering how my life is going at the moment, I’m not sure how I could and it makes me sad.

All this to say that I am looking for a new life rhythm and it’s taking its own sweet time to materialise. I would like to fit it all in, and I don’t know if I can. I need to get better at planning things and sticking to the plan. I’m not sure what it means for the blog, apart from I want to write and I maybe also feel like I need to but right now, just figuring out how to survive this business course is going to take a fair amount of my energy, especially because the next unit is on finances and oh my goodness am I dreading it, I am so not a maths person.

On another note, it is that time of year when one must buy a new organiser for 2015/2016. I’m a big fan of family planners and have been using one for the last two years. Now that I am back at work and actively studying so I can become a fully fledged entrepreneur with my own business, I am seriously considering treating myself to an Erin Condren life planner. We have nothing quite like it in the UK, and if I do splash out on one, you can be sure I will be reviewing it on here so keep your eyes peeled.

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