Tuesday 17 March 2015

Re-entry is always a little bumpy

As I mentioned in my last post, I was away last weekend spending time in Sydney for the first Colour Conference of 2015.  The conference was simply brilliant.  The worship was amazing, the teaching was deep and profound, the time with women from my church was precious.  And I flew up and back.  You know how I feel about that!

At the end of it all, after the crush of 13,500 women trying to move through the concourse around the arena after each meeting, I was a good kind of tired and ready to be home again.  Yet I always dread those initial hours of being home.  It's hard to come from a place where your spirit and soul have been refreshed, renewed, inspired and transformed and return to the regular household stuff of kids being annoying and people demanding things of you.

The first hour and a half was lovely - Dh drove out to pick me up and we have a lovely drive home chatting and catching up.  But for the rest of the day and into the evening I was found to be muttering "I didn't miss this".  And the next morning when one child required me to use my problem-solving skills instead of their own I declared that I should just go away again so they would learn to think for themselves.  "What would you have done yesterday, when I wasn't here?" I questioned the child who seems to stop at "I don't know what to do" and doesn't move beyond that to consider possible solutions.  These people survived quite fine without me for four whole days.  Clearly I don't need to solve all the problems!

So re-entry was bumpy.  Again.  Even though Miss Sunshine zipped home between morning work and afternoon work to do some cleaning up, because she knows how I feel about walking into a pigsty after being away.  Even though Dh had scrubbed our ensuite from top to bottom so I would come home to a clean bathroom.  Even though I was hugged to bits when I walked in the door.  It was still bumpy.

4 comments:

Eva Lewis (The Multitasking Woman) said...

It's hard isn't it but maybe it's not so much that they rely on you, perhaps they feel reassured when you help them? I must admit though, getting away every so often is a good refresher.

EssentiallyJess said...

Yeah I get that. Not that I go away often, but even a night away a few weeks ago, I noticed it. One night off not having to clean was absolute bliss.

Unknown said...

I have no idea what this would be like as I am yet to have time away on my own but I can imagine it would be much the same, though I don't know if I'd get the clean bathroom. #IBOT

Unknown said...

Ah yes. I've had the same experience. I can walk into the house after even just a few hours away. Everyone is happily playing until they see me and it's all mummy, mummy,whinge, whinge :) The colour conference would have been amazing. It sounds really interesting. #teamIBOT