I have fallen in love.  At not quite 35 years of age, not quite 5 years of marriage and not quite 3 years of motherhood under my belt, love has struck again.  But this time, it is with me.  Let me explain.

I have engaged in the perpetual batlte of time balance, guilt, resentment against my NEED for self preservation, time to regroup and essentially any activity that I could deem enjoyable to serve the people I love more than the air that I breathe, my family.  That doesn't even begin to include the profession that enables me to put the roof over their heads and food on their table in the style they have become accustomed to. But I have had a series of soul awakening events in my life that have revolutionized the way I approach me.

I was always last, always tired, always the martyr.  Always the one to sacrifice for the new whatever that hubby needed for his hunting trip or that teenager X HAD to have for school.  Always the chaffeur, the cook, the maid and the provider. But guess what?  the world doesn't need me to perform those roles 24/7.  I can take time for me EVERY DAY.  I have found I need to take time for me everyday and just appreciate me, give myself the gift of quiet, or a walk or a journal, a blog a magazine, whatever I am in the mood for.  Essentially all the stuff I denied myself so that others could do what they wanted to do. And I have fallen in love with me again.

Even more shocking, I left my office today with 200 unread emails sitting in my inbox. I left so that I could go get my son and enjoy some time with him where we weren't rushing, meeting a schedule. And I was okay with it. That doesn't happen. Well, it didn't before I fell in love.