Day of Rest

Before I had kids you would never have caught me sitting alone in a coffee shop. While I've always been someone who enjoys time alone, even as a child, I really didn't have the confidence to be alone in public - would people think I didn't have any friends? Or that I'd been stood up? Now it's an entirely different story. Every Sunday morning I head out to the local coffee shop for 2 or 3 hours with my books, magazines, paper and a good pen, all by myself.

This is my one (and only) time each week to be completely alone and do whatever I want. Sometimes I put down my pen and just think for a few minutes - meandering, contemplative thoughts that drift as long as I let them - because they aren't interrupted. It's a fact of my life currently that in the house my own agenda will always be intruded upon. This isn't a terrible thing, Maymuna and Hafsa's needs have to come first in most cases - can you imagine me saying "just wait another minute baby, I'm thinking about something right now." My children might be stunned into silence for 2 seconds and then the whining/fighting/tickling/careening would resume. I can remain pretty accepting of this fact, as long as my "me" time comes around Sunday morning. In our toddler lingo, I think of it as simply "waiting my turn" for my own attention!

It's my #1 weapon against resentment, to tell you the truth. Throughout the week at those times when I really want to take a break and read my book or flip leisurely through a magazine but I can't, I just think to myself "hey, no big deal. I'll bring this along with me on Sunday instead." Without that delayed-gratification coping mechanism I tend to carry on effectively for a while (a month?) until all of the sudden I reach a boiling point where I am severely distressed, imagining that I will never get any time to myself ever again (!!!). By that point I'm so tired and strung out that it is entirely too late to go out and try to re-energize myself. So I prefer the preventative tact. Stephen Covey would say it's a deposit in my emotional bank account so that my balance stays even through a week that may bring a few withdrawals.

So happy Sunday morning.

Cha-ching. :)