Rowan Aderyn

For many people this will sound like a strange thing but I am so excited about the fact I am looking forward to a break from work. It appears to be another welcome side effect of improving my mental health.

Historically I wouldn’t look forward to time off. I would feel the need to fill every minute with an activity of some sort. Everything I did was for the girls or working on the house there would be very little if any “things” in there for me and certainly no down time.

I would put so much pressure on myself to get so much done, too make sure everyone else had a good time. I would blast my way through the week often feeling a sense of a lack of accomplishment, spending a lot of my time a little detached from the world just moving through the motions. I will exhaust myself trying to create that happy world I wanted the girls to know, not managing to benefit from it myself.

I would miss the little moments like this morning, sitting at the table with a cup of tea watching my littlest and her dad quietly sat together building Lego.

Well this half term I am excited about time off. Yep I have lots of things planned for the kids, Halloween parties, Legoland, Swimming and board games. But I also have things for me, theatre, archery, yoga and friends. Don’t worry the hubby has not been left out he is going away for a couple of nights to play dungeons and dragons. And shock of all shocks there are some slots of downtime. With nothing planned and I am happy leaving them like that. We will find something to do or nothing to do and whatever that is we will find the contentment in those moments.

I hope we all manage to find and hold on to these little moments I am quickly realising that’s where the happiness lives.

Happy Halloween all.