Lazy
I’ve just emerged after five weeks of lazy summer holidays.
I didn’t intend to ignore my blog, and my work, and my ‘to do list’ for the entire five weeks, but that’s what happened.
For the past month or so I’ve hung out with my kids, read some books, gone swimming, pottered in the garden, played on the ipad. I did a lot of sleeping, and chatting, and snuggling, and watching of instagram stories, and I did the bare minimum of cleaning, and dinner making, and ‘have tos’. I’ve done a whole lot of ‘nothing much’.
I’ve been lazy.
Gloriously, wonderfully, lazy.
And I’m not sorry.
Sure, I could have spent the time ‘hustling’ and trying to ‘grow my business’. I could have spent it ‘pushing myself’ and ‘stepping outside my comfort zone’. I could even have spent it coming up with a ‘focus word’ and creating myself ‘a better life’, or even ‘decluttering’ my old life.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t because I was sick of being busy. I was sick of always adding something else to my iist, always chasing my tail. I needed a break from ‘always everything and more’ so badly, and I finally took it.
I finally cut myself some slack.
I finally listened to my own advice.
I gave myself permission to rest.
And when I sunk down into the beautiful, sweet, laziness it was just exactly what I needed, so I stayed for a while, and then for a while longer.
I did feel guilty once or twice. ‘Think of all the things you should be doing!’ a voice in my head said accusingly ‘What about all the opportunities you are missing out on?!’.
But I just put on another podcast and drank another frozen coke until the mean voice faded and another one took its place.
‘It’s ok to rest’ it reminded me softly ‘you’ve got time, you deserve time, enjoy the time.’
I’m not sure why it’s so hard for us mums to set aside the to do list, to ditch the FOMO and to let ourselves rest. And I’m not sure why being ‘lazy’ is such a negative idea.
Let’s not teach our kids that you have to run yourself ragged all the time to be a decent person, and lets not teach them that taking time out and resting sometimes is somehow a bad thing.
“Sometimes it’s perfectly okay, and absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back, and do nothing” – Lori Deschene
So if you ever find yourself with a little (or a lot) of time to be lazy, embrace it and celebrate.