Spending time with the family can be challenging but is very important to maintain your close relationships. The only way to get through the most difficult times is to make the most of it, regardless of whether you enjoy what you’re doing or simply have to do it for its own sake.
I used to work in a very well-known venue in London, putting in anywhere between fifty and sixty-five hours a week. Sometimes I had to force myself to work fifteen hours a day for four days in a row just because I had to. It became a very emotionally taxing and physically tense work, especially while trying to figure out when to spend time with the family, go to the gym etc.
I was already three hours over my wake-up time the next morning by the time I got home. My social life quickly became nonexistent, and I even had to consider special occasions like my own birthday, Christmas Eve, Easter, and Hallowe’en. The work became to be quite tiresome and stressful, and even while the pay was adequate, it wasn’t sufficient to justify continuing. I concluded that my baby spent mor time with a baby comforter than she did with me. Guzzling a cup of Darjeeling tea as rapidly as I could in around five minutes were the highlights of my day.
The management was the worst I’ve ever had at a job, and I’m positive I’ve had lecturers who were more considerate of their students and treated them like partners in crime than these people.
Paying seventeen-hour shifts in this building ultimately led to the state of my health deteriorating and feeling so defeated that I was unable to function any more, until I eventually decided to work from home.
I did, however, discover a few small ways to savour the structure I had created at home. I said before that I used to spend five days a week inside the facility for full days at a time. The benefit of working from home is of course to save money and time commuting, but more importantly is to spend time with the family.
At least I get to interact with new people every day. Even if it was just for five minutes, the brief and fleeting opportunity for human contact rescued my day. I could have done the same thing I usually do and come home exhausted after a long commute, pick up the child and crash out after eating my dinner as fast as I could.
Not anymore, after being completely alone for seven hours, it’s nice when my partner comes home, we actually have quality time now to converse over dinner in a calmer relaxed way, even for a short while helps you stay sane!
While I shouldn’t admit it, the stress caused by working long hours led me to least five occasions when I made the decision that getting drunk at work was the best idea ever (which made for a great Christmas eve!).
Now I enjoy taking the older child to school while staying on top of the needs of the baby, holding down a job and spending quality time with my partner. Can it get better than this?