Why are you such a bully?

Oh Monday... why did you feel the need to intrude on my weekend?  You are such a bully sometimes!

It's hard for Monday to arrive when your weekend has been awesome, it's so abrupt.  Bullying it's way in and pushing Sunday out of the way. Hubby and I had such a great weekend.  I am simply not ready to crawl out of this wonderful family based cocoon and move back into a world that includes so many people.

Almost a week on the west coast with my son and then this wonderful weekend that included my girls, well following that up simply feels harsh.

Hubby bought me a sign for the wall over my desk, it reads "never get too busy making a living that you forget to have a life".  I think I have been very guilty of that for a long time.  Slowing down these almost two weeks has given me time to think.  Time to process.

For a long time I have known that "no" is not a standard word in my vocabulary.  To the detriment of me and having a life worth living.  I actually had to totally quit volunteering for a while, none, nothing.  Because I had gotten so wrapped up in my inability to say no.  I was the Pack Chairman, heavily involved in the PTSA, I was the "creative idiot" that put together the yearbook each year (and folks wonder why I don't scrapbook - do that for 5 years and see if you do), I was involved in the wives group and a few other things.  It was at a point that I was worried it was an illness.  Not only did I have an inability to say no to volunteer things, I was just as bad with my family and work. 

I wore myself out, trying to be everything that everyone wanted me to be.  I set myself up for a total melt down physically.  Next thing I knew, I had become almost a hermit.  Even now, I have few friends outside of work.  When we do our annual campaign I realize that I have to work harder.  I don't have relationships that are not work centered.

Being gone for almost two weeks, I realized how much the things I value have been pushed aside.  Do you do that?  It's feeling like an illness again.  I was going to leave a bit early on Friday, I had not even been back two and a half days at work and already was over  20 hours at lunch time.  I thought I might head home by 3:30 or 4:00, make a nice dinner for my family, enjoy some time with my Hubby and Grand Baby... That didn't happen.  There was a major mailing that had to go out... Hubby, Grand Baby, myself and one of my co-workers ended up sitting there for hours taking care of it, as 4:00 turned into 5:00 and then 5:30 pm those words were ringing in my head.

I never mind working hard, I will give any job my all. I need to figure out a balance.  I need to find a way to make the ends meet in the middle and not feel like a gumby doll in the middle being pulled in too many directions at once.

I can't be the only person that struggles with this...