When Your Day Job Takes Over

by | Aug 14, 2015 | reflections

So…it’s be a little while since I posted. That’s because my day job…yeah, that whole mom/wife thing…has taken over for a while. This has been one stressful week of getting back from vacation and gearing up for school. Can anyone relate? How do you keep

Stressed Mom at Home

your writing going when your “day job” starts demanding more and more from you? Especially those of you who have a clock to punch in addition to the mom/dad/spouse thing and then your writing on top of that? There just simply aren’t enough hours in the day it seems! Or there haven’t been for me at least.

But it’s just for a season…this is what I have to constantly remind myself. This craziness of transitioning from summer to school year is just for a season and it will pass. There will be a return to normalcy (or some semblance of what we call “normalcy”) and routine. Then I can begin to once again find time for these things that are of utmost importance to me (like writing and blogging), that seem to get put by the wayside sometimes in the business of the mom thing which, I’m just going to say it, has to come first sometimes. I cannot tell my children to take a backseat to my writing. That is not a choice I am willing to make. And if my writing career suffers for it, so be it.

There is a time and place and season for everything. And the writing will have it’s own time. While my kids are small and so dependent on me is not it. So, it will have to take it’s rightful place in my priorities. Sometimes that means I can dedicate 20+ hours a week to writing, sometimes not even 5. It all depends. And I have to be okay with that. Especially if I’m going to have the priorities that I have (namely, children before writing). There’s just no sense in beating myself up over something I can’t control (the lack of hours in a day). I can’t be all things to all people…least of all to myself. I can only be me. I can only stretch myself so far and still be sane.

So, after all that rambling, here’s what I’m left with – priorities. Have them, use them, don’t let anything or anyone judge you (including yourself) for how you prioritize your life. Just commit to it and live them out.

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Sara R. Turnquist