On the road again...
Coming to you from France! with this post I'll start a 3 week trend of coming to you from a different country every week as we embark on our whirlwind tour of the great-grandparents and grandparents. First stop on the tour: Basque Country, France. The world doesn't need to know the exact location of family so this is a broad yet specific enough destination. I'm here for 8 days (Jack and Noah for 10) to soak up some sun, slow down to pace of life, lie on beaches, and swim in cold water that isn't full of floating garbage. Tough life - we know.
Back in HK the week was a very relaxing and very slow paced one (which is rare for HK!). Most clients were away for a week of holiday so I only had 7 sessions this week! Noah was off school so I spent my usual Tuesday solo chill day with her. We had fun doing a mix of errands and play time. On Wednesday I popped into my OBs office to pick up my "fit to fly" letter which was really useful to have because no one asked to see it...oh well, at least it was a free blood pressure check and only look 10 min out of my day.
The second half of the week was glorious but before I get too carried away, let's dive into the week.
Training
Monday and Wednesday were bog standard full body strength days. If I'm honest, I'm getting bored of training but used the fact that I'll be without gym access for 8-10 days as incentive to do something. Friday we had a team training session as our new location! The new location has a great track area which is why the warm up looked a little different.
Tuesday was full test day, as was Thursday but more on that later.
As for yoga - I got 45 min in on both Wednesday after my strength training session and on Friday before my long haul flight (which was a great call if I do say so myself).
As for the weekend - reuniting with family is more important than training and in true French seaside town lifestyle, we walk from town to town along the coast so the step count easily doubled without any effort at all.
On the note of step counts, back in HK itwas kept up, as usual, although it is getting much harder to hit now that the sun is hotter than hell and the humidity outside is higher than a steam room.
Life in General
I'm only going to talk about one thing this week because I'm short on time but I Amal think this is an important enough topic that I don't want to get lost in a sea of random ramblings.
Taking a break.
Not Ross and Rachel style, I mean from responsibility. Mum fatigue is real and it doesn't ever really let up. Now, this is not at all a dig at the other partner, I can only speak for myself but mine DEFINITELY pulls his weight to the best of his ability. Our work situations mean I'm much more "free" and therefore a huge brunt of the load of life falls on my shoulders. House upkeep, Noah's schedule, food prep, cooking...etc. And given the travel I also added, packing for Noah, packing for myself, packing for Noah's flights (which is a job in itself), and all travel admin. Throw the actual desire to be a present and active mum and a present and active member of a work force into this mix and it's overwhelming, to say the least.
That's not a complaint - it's a fact of life. I have it much much better than a lot of people around the world. I'm coming from a place of absolute privilege, I acknowledge that. But the feeling of being slowly and increasingly overwhelmed can happen to anyone.
Last year a huge part of my mental health break down was me being overwhlemed at the attempt at balancing life and feeling inadequate at work and at home because I felt like I couldn't take a break because there's always stuff to do.
All of this is to say that on Thursday I was given a day I haven't been faced with for over 2.5 years. A day of nothing. No work, no husband or child (they were both already in France), and no social commitments. Of course the first thing that kicked in was "list clearing" mode. I did have a list of quite a few things I could have checked off my list thanks to having a child free house. I was about to start my list when I started feeling overwhelmed. Overwhlemed that if I started the list then there would be no stopping the snowball effect and this whole, rare day of nothingness would be squandered.
So I 180ed.
I stayed in PJs, did some very basic but necessary and fun life admin for 90 min in the morning (photo organising from 2020-2021, ie. infant and baby Noah), ran 2 errands I wanted to run (shopping), and spent 80% the day doing absolutely nothing. I watched a movie, I read my book, I went to get a foot massage, and I let my screen time skyrocket.
I didn't train, I didn't do yoga, I didn't go for a long walk, I just lay down and was still.
By 10pm I'd accomplished nothing. I'd been negatively productive. I had nothing to show for my day of solitude but that was exactly what I needed. I went to bed and woke up on Friday feeling amazing.
So if anything this post is a reminder to myself to let myself slow down when I can. Life can be overwhelming and sometimes the best way to settle the mind is to do absolutely nothing about mounting responsibility. Obviously that's not a good mantra to follow on a weekly basis but it's a good one to follow on the odd occasion. It's ok to slow down and be unproductive - you might be a better person at the end of it.
Oh that note, it's time to get back to my family and my holiday!
Speak to you all next week!
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