On My Mind: Always Being On

Over the last year I have seen meme after meme after tik tok after reel after post that says something along the lines of "why are we expected to work and live as if we're not living in a pandemic?" of my personal favorite "we are expected to work like we don't have children, and parent like we don't have to work."

And frankly it's exhausting. I have shared some of my work / life balance struggles a lot on my social media, and I don't share them for everyone to say "poor her." I share them because the struggle is real, for me and so many others in the last two years that are full time working women and full time working mothers.

When the pandemic hit, everyone seemed to be sympathetic to those of us that were working from home and juggling the lack of childcare or school for our children. But somewhere along the way, we have stopped giving each other space and grace for the lasting mental and emotional toll that those times and current times took on us and our business / work and have gone back to the need to always be "on."

While in Aruba, I gave myself some grace and it felt so good! Even if I wanted to send an email I couldn't, and trust me, I wanted to! I love the work that I do and my clients. I did miss it. But I had to keep reminding myself that taking a break from that part of my life was ok.

At the beginning of 2022, I set some hard scheduling for myself for work hours, client dedicated hours and time to spend with Rowan and family. I only take calls on certain days / times, I have scaled back shoot days to 2 per week, and I have capped my weddings to 10 per year. Getting that time away in Aruba just secured that those boundaries are working. So, while I still am constantly juggling it all, I feel like my day doesn't need to start the minute I open my eyes and that transparency and keeping to my schedule is starting to help me return to some pre-pandemic normalcy.