Alone Time

As any mom knows, "alone time" is something that moms hardly ever get. I have been in recent conflict about alone time. I used to, about a year ago, get a fair amount of it. Now, with the business burgeoning and doing pretty well, still working part time, raising two busy girls, running a household (sorta, hehe), and being a decent wife and fairly good daughter I really do not get much time to myself. I have been CRAVING alone time.

The question of the day: Where did my time go? I used to watch tv more, I used to read, I used to work out much more regularly. I used to listen to books on cd. I used to hang out at the coffee shop and drink lattes, read the paper or the current issue of Allure. I used to have a fairly active social life. I used to do more with the kids, instead of being locked behind the computer screen, researching, studying, practicing, communicating about my passion, my photography. And truly, doing these things has made me proud of my commitment to the business, my clients LOVE me for my ability to turn around orders in record time (unless there are extenuating circumstances). My life HAS become photography, I take the kids out...I bring the (or in my case a) camera. I go out for whatever reason, yup, gotta take the camera.

Tonight, I read an interesting snippet in South Suburban Family Time magazine...a letter from the editor in which she mentions her lack of alone time and somehow when she finally got some down time her son came and "hung out with her", though at first she wasn't a willing participant in the exchange. At the end, something she closed her letter with made me take pause...made me realize WHY I am doing all this...WHY I am so committed to it and I also came to the realization that sometimes I take it for granted that the girls will always be here. They won't.

She wrote this one sentence that will haunt me for days, perhaps for the rest of their childhood: "I look at this bright boy. I am lucky. I have many years to be alone."

Amen. Take pause, stop time for yourself and your kids. Hug them, be with them, they are your gifts. You too will have many more years to be alone.