I don't have time to go to work!

I don’t have time to go to work. Regardless of whether I enjoy it when I get there (and usually I don’t), I simply don’t have time.

There is always too much to do and not enough time to do it in. I am not arrogant enough to assume I am the only one in this position, but it does seem to be a permanent state for me.

We have a 1950s house which constantly needs minor maintenance done to it for which we cannot afford to pay and so have to do it ourselves. We have a large garden which grows like Topsy with several mature trees and plants – lovely to look at but time consuming to look after. Between us we have five children between 17 and 24 who all still need help, guidance and advice on various issues – don’t listen to anyone that tells you parenting stops at 18 because they have clearly never had children of their own. We are both trying to eat healthily and exercise more, both of which take time and effort. On top of that I am trying to have a life by doing what I love – amdram – and helping run the Society, and The Hubby is trying to keep in touch with his friends from various past lives and socialise too. It’s all too much! We can end up not seeing each other from Sunday night through to Friday, and that’s not good.

In this past week I have only had one evening commitment but that’s unusual. Often I am out two or three nights and we have things planned at the weekend too. The other day I sat down with the diary and tried to find a date to see a very good friend just for a glass of wine and a natter and we had to go for something at the end of April. It’s madness!

Much of this is, of course, self inflicted. I don’t have to do shows, nor do I have to sit on the Society’s committee. We could move to a nice little two bedroom flat with no garden (the cats would hate it!), built recently, and in one stroke get rid of all the home upkeep chores.  We could tell our kids to get on with it and learn the hard way like we did!

But we won’t do any of these things. When work is so demanding and as unsatisfying as it is for both of us now, you have to have something that keeps you going and for us it’s our relationship and the things we have and like to do. So what we have to do is find a way of managing it and keeping it all in proportion.

That is not as easy to do as it is to say. Sadly, work does have to come first – it pays the bills for two houses and provides just about enough to fund a reasonable lifestyle (although that is getting tougher). If one of us were made redundant, we’d have to rethink but for now we have decided to struggle through with a plan which has light at the end of the tunnel in terms of finances and time. We reckon in five years time, we will be in a much better place – five years!

We have taken a day off this week, and in the not too distant future we have a week away which can’t come quickly enough. Until then we’ll struggle along trying to fit it all in, and when we get there we’ll wonder where the time has gone. No change there, then!