An Unexpected Wedding: Balance

Friday, January 21, 2011

Balance

So, I have a bit of a confession to make: It appears I'm not very good at this work-life balance thing, as evidenced in my not posting for a virtual eternity. (I put this in the 'life' column by the way!)

I don't see the sense in whining to lovely people of the blogosphere who want to be uplifted, not dragged down with me, but I think a bit of honesty is in order. These last few months have been hard. Really hard. Not in a tragic life altering way, for which I am grateful, but in an every day grind you down sort of way. Apparently organising a wedding whilst trying to complete the masters year of a maths degree, tutor students, and live in a house with a criminally insane cat aint so easy. I really struggled to keep up with things, I tried writing more schedules, but there just weren't enough hours in the day. So of course my manic 'must not fail' attitude was to JUST WORK HARDER. But there's a limit to just how hard anyone can work, and just how busy anyone can be. Don't get me wrong, I am certain that my work load pales in comparison to some people's, but for me this was HARD.

Long story short, I was very busy with work, so I let play go by the wayside. And I include in play things like organising socials for the vegetarian society at uni, and of course this poor neglected blog. But, quelle surprise, people need play, and no play makes me less than upbeat. Some hard thinking ensued, the sort of 'I can't carry on like this, what am I going to change?' hard thinking. Which unsurprisingly, was also HARD.

Now here's the positive. What I am going to change is to start valuing the things that I enjoy more, rather than jumping to the conclusion that anything enjoyable is inherently less 'good' than something less enjoyable. I've re-realised that life is all about the fun things really. And the best fun things are the long term fun things, you know the projects you enjoy doing but also give you a real sense of achievement. So I'm vowing to take time for projects like that, and that means more blogging, so keep tuned!

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Learning:

Getting married wasn't really in my plan, so tying the knot at 23 was somewhat unexpected, but awesome! In the planning stage I hoped that bouncing my thoughts off the internet, and anybody who stumbles across them would help me to work out how to do it in a way that was right for us.

Now we're wed I hope I have a little wisdom to share, and if not wisdom at least experience. Reading wise words from a whole load of clever people kept me on the straight and narrow through the wedding planning. I hope this can do the same for somebody, and I would love to hear anything you have to share, wise or otherwise!

Why 'An unexpected wedding' ?

I wrote a little bit of an explanation as to how this blog got its name here. I think the name also conveys something of my attitude to weddings in general; they just arn't expected any more. The place of marriage in our society has changed, and I think that is what has allowed me, albeit somewhat reluctantly at first, to embrace marriage. I'm really excited about making our marriage awesome, and being part of a generation who isn't expected to marry has allowed me to feel this way. We're doing this consciously and purposefully because we want to nurture our relationship, and I think that has surprised some people. So here's to making conscious choices to better our world, and to starting the revolution at home.