One of the nice things about being single is that I am in control of my time. I am in control of my schedule and how I spend my time. Honestly, that was never the case when I was with someone. Part of that was due to social obligations and part of it was due to my expectations of myself withing the boundaries of that relationship. And those are not bad things to have be a part of one's life. Being in a relationship comes with certain expectations that need to be met in order to thrive as a couple. But I am no longer a part of a couple and so I need to remind myself that my time is my own.
That may sound like such an obvious statement. In some ways, it is. But you need to remember that I spent almost 15 years with a time schedule that relied on another person. And when you are definitely the caregiver in the relationship, how you spend your time becomes less and less about you and more about the other person and the two of you as a couple. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that and honestly, I enjoyed that aspect of my relationships over the years. Now that I am not in a relationship, I am discovering that being in control of how I spend my time is a wonderful form of self-care.
It has taken me several years to get to the point that I can do what I want when I want. As you have heard me talk about before, I have been a list person for most of my adult life. It works for me. But within the confines of a relationship, those lists became the guiding factor of every day of my life. If I drifted away from the list, I felt lost because I feared it would negatively affect my relationship. So, I never did that. I stuck to the routine. I stuck to the lists that defined my contributions to my relationship. And I have since realized that this was not the healthiest thing to do.
Now I am in a relationship with myself and learning to take back control of my own time has been pretty eye opening. Relearning that I can spend my time exactly as I want to have made me much more relaxed in many ways. Yes, there are times that I do make a list these days because there are things that I need to get done and putting them in list form is now a reminder of those things and not a rigid schedule. I can appreciate that much more now. This past week, I have come home from work and asked myself each day what I wanted to do. Some nights I cooked, some nights I just sat and watched tv. I did not feel like I needed to constantly be doing something productive to show my worth to myself. My worth is coming from doing what I want to, when I want to.
It's a good feeling.
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