Something I wrote during a week I took away in Melbourne… about two years ago now, and I just found it in my notes.
At the time, it felt big. Heavy. A bit confronting.
Reading it back, I can feel how much I’ve shifted since then. I’ve had more practice. More reps at leaving, at trusting, at holding both the guilt and the knowing.
But the core of it? Still very real. It still raises its head whenever I choose me, I am just quicker at catching the slippery little sucker…
Rock and a hard place comes to mind.
After years of promising myself I would do this, I finally took a full week away from the office. I travelled somewhere else so my focus could be on this… the stuff you’re reading right now.
The content I create for the business takes a lot from me. Energy. Effort. Headspace. Because, in case you hadn’t already realised… I’m not a natural when it comes to writing or creative work.
I love it. I think I do a good job.
But it costs me.
Less so now, with support around me. Templates. Systems. And Mel, my practice manager, who holds so much of Nest together behind the scenes.
But back then… it felt like a lot.
And because of the way my ADHD brain works, I don’t do things in halves. I go all in.
So I knew uninterrupted time would be a game changer.
A week a quarter. That was the idea.
And then… the guilt creeps in.
A whole week away from my kids?
Too much? Too hard?
Anyway. I did it.
I surprised myself. I think I surprised my husband too. But I did it, with his full blessing. Thanks JP.
And still… the guilt was real.
I didn’t fully understand why it hit me the way it did, when it didn’t seem to land the same for him.
Maybe it was hormonal.
Maybe it was because I’d been the primary caregiver for so long.
Maybe it was because I carried them, and there’s something in me that still feels wired to stay close, to protect.
Truth is…I didn’t know.
But it felt pretty shit.
So I noticed it.
The thoughts that crept in about how things might have been easier at home if I’d stayed.
And instead of pushing them away, I tried to let them be there. To see what was underneath.
Fear
What if the last week of term, already a bit of a mess, was harder because I wasn’t there?
What if my husband got completely overloaded… work, kids, life… and was wrecked by the time I got back?
Frustration
Things might not be done the way I’d do them.
This time away might not be as productive as I wanted it to be.
Why wasn’t this easier? Why wasn’t it just excitement and gratitude?
Pressure
I better make this worth it.
Every. single. minute.
I need to produce something amazing.
(Well… here you are reading it. Amazing, right? 😉)
Back then, I didn’t have a neat answer for how to make this go away.
And honestly…I still don’t.
But what I do have now is more capacity to hold it.
Because I understand this more deeply:
Most of what I was experiencing…was coming from my own internal voices.
Yes, shaped by culture, expectations, the invisible load many of us carry.
But still…mine.
And I also know this now, more than I did then…
I am a better human, a better parent, and a better partner when I have balance.
When I have time to work in a way that actually works for me.
When I have space.
When I allow myself to meet my own needs too.
So these days…I hold both.
The guilt.
And the knowing that this matters.
If you’re in it too… that push-pull between being there for everyone else and carving out space for yourself…
You’re not doing it wrong.
And for what it’s worth… Melbourne was still lovely.
JP survived. The kids survived.
And Nest kept running… because good people were (and are) holding it alongside me.
