One friend (who is still working) often accuses me of being a "princess" when I complain. Hey! After 45 years of working jobs I didn't love, and putting other people first, I want to be a princess now.
A couple of months ago I noticed I was always in a hurry and unable to relax. I was over scheduled, which happens, dontcha know? However, I don't want to eliminate any of the things I do.
My solution was to make Sunday my day of rest. On Sunday I only do what I want to do, even if it is nothing.
Sunday is now the day that I feel most retired and free. I look forward to it. Everyone should have a least one "ME" day each week. If I ruled the world you would have one, too.
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| I could get an exact copy of this tiara for $15.99 on amazon |
I'm such a princess I have seven days a week of rest. I often think I should volunteer somewhere and do something constructive with my time. Then I go outside and dead-head the roses, scabiosa, and columbines. I mostly hide from the world instead of working to change it.
ReplyDeleteIf I could grow columbines, I might never go inside.
DeleteYou HAVE to buy that tiara and wear it all day on Sundays! LOL!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha. I really should.
DeleteTotally agree with you. I wear a dressing gown for most of Sunday, I have one for hot days too.
ReplyDeleteSuch a pleasure. I actually do creative things when I feel free to follow my own desire.
DeleteYou ARE a princess and good for you. You may not be working at a job that gives you a check each week but who cleans your house, cooks the meals, washes the dishes, does the laundry, cares for the garden, does the shopping, etc.? A day for yourself is a necessity.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Emma!!!
DeleteI like the idea of a day of rest, even if you're retired. My mother in law stayed so busy the first 10 years after she retired she would sometimes say, "I don't know how I ever had time to work!"
ReplyDeleteI second Steve's suggestion to buy yourself a tiara.
I think it would be liberating to get that tiara.
DeleteYou need that tiara.
ReplyDeleteYou KNOW I do!
DeleteI have had the same idea. Told my son (who takes care of me) that we need one day to do nothing. That could mean sitting outside and drawing or watercolor.
ReplyDeleteI have been very ill for 3 years and trying to act like I am not You get a small amount of work done everyday but then you work every day. Not fun.
My friend Bee always wore a tiara when she when on Ship trips. She was Empress Bee of the High Seas. She is a hoot !
Get a Tiara now ! Sounds like fun.
parsnip
Empress Bee of the High Seas sound like she was a great friend to have. I think maybe I will buy that tiara and at the very least wear it when I'm around my accusatory friend.
DeleteSorry to hear you have a long term illness. A day of drawing and watercolor may be just what the doctor ordered. Plugging into the creative imagination is the ultimate vacation from this crazy world.
My friends who set everything to rights here at my new house at one point said though they were not done, they would not come the next day, a Sunday. On Sundays they do nothing, including changing from PJ's. They eat whatever is lying around the house. I'll have to mention Diana's tiara to them. I hope we see yours because you must have it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad others do this. When we all worked for a living we looked forward to the weekend, even though Saturday was often spent cleaning and grocery shopping for some. Sunday was the best, except of the anxiety about having to go back to work the next day. Now it is just the perfect day. We all need a perfect day each week.
DeleteIn re. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."your case could well be: "I'd be getting more fun out of this if I'd gone for the fifty-buck job - with the adjustable headband. This one's giving me migraine."
ReplyDeleteI'd find it difficult to allocate a whole day to nothing but then I suspect I wouldn't qualify, I don't work as hard as you do. Mine's a more sneaky R&R period. I don't do breakfast, my first meal of the day is brunch at about 1 pm. VR gets to read The Guardian first and the main bit (the thick newsy section) is mine round about 1.30. Once I'd have gulped it down along with my humous toast, apple, orange and three Lungo coffees and gone back to the keyboard. These days I linger, reading the long articles I'd previously have skipped. I break off two or three minutes before 3 pm, beyond would gross indulgence. The potentially fatal distraction used to occur during the Brexit debates in the House of Commons. We have a TV channel devoted entirely to live coverage of Parliament; normally I'd prefer to open my veins - but this was seeing into the future and the horror thereof. Sometimes I'd still be watching at 9 pm (21.00 if you prefer the twenty-four hour clock).
Our world (and that is especially true, I think for those of us in the U.S. and the U.K.) is beginning to feel more and more like Star Wars. There is a fight going on between good and evil.
DeleteI don't actually do nothing. I do what I want. I refuse to go biking with my husband on Sunday. I don't babysit. I don't go to the grocery store, even if there's not a drop of wine left in the entire house. Yesterday I read on the couch, started a Christmas tree skirt I will eventually have quilted professionally (because I hate hand quilting now) and made chocolate chip cookie bars, as well as one of my favorite dinners). The key is "what I want to do" and learning to say no instead of "okay, sigh." I was raised and trained to do for others, to make people I love happy. I'm desperately trying to learn to be selfish. One day off from being a loving wife, mother, grandma, and friend each week is a start. I'm determined to be comfortably selfish (again, at least one day per week)before I die.
Beg pardon for misinterpreting you. There is of course a world of difference between making choc. chip cookies (which you want to do) and merely lolling on the couch. I should have acknowledged that. The problem is some people see things like reading, listening to music, writing real letters that require an envelope and simple contemplation as "doing nothing" compared with their carpentering, car-cleaning and lawn-mowing world. As my younger daughter said many years ago, "Are you going upstairs, Daddy, to do that scribbling or whatever it is you do?" And there was me, reckoning to be the next James Joyce!
DeleteI fully support your entitlement to be selfish. The sad thing is that many mothers often reach a point where they're incapable of breaking out from the domestic round. I remember poignantly my mother trying to fit in poetry and novel writing in an over-demanding, basically unsympathetic, all-male household. And I'm ashamed.
I replied through my email, but evidently that doesn't work. I think you would look divine in that tiara - you could definitely pull it off. I'm going to take a me day, on your advice. Wish you were here with me, we would have quite a day!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, we would!
DeleteI am in favor of a Day Of Rest, I find it difficult to establish one though.
ReplyDeleteOh Dawn, you of all people need a Me day. You just don't catch a break.
Delete"Doing nothing" is really an act of self care and therefore, quite productive. It should be mandatory. Tiara optional.
ReplyDeleteThis is true!
DeleteI have a terrible time taking time for myself to do as I please. Is it a woman thing? Or a generational thing? I'm thinking a woman thing myself. We take care of everyone else.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking I should try this and then thought, I would wait until I retire in 3 or 4 years:) Apparently I really do have a hard time, doing as I please. Crap!
Keep trying!
DeleteWhy Sunday, when you have the choice of all the days in the week? Just curious.
ReplyDeleteIt is the least busy or demanding day of the week for me.
DeleteI virtually never take a day of rest but on weekends I do gardening and other things that restore me, so maybe that's my version of rest. And I read a lot, which seems restful, too.
ReplyDeleteI think gardening can definitely count as rest, even when it is hard work. The key to my day of rest is that I do what I want, not necessarily that I try to do nothing. It is kind of a rest from responsibility and commitments.
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