The "Me Time" Myth

It's been a while!  Babies keep you running like I could never have imagined!  Forget about cooking dinner.  I'm proud of myself if we have all of the necessary items in the house for Husband to make himself a bologna sandwich for dinner.  And this makes me sad.  I used to have time to cook.  Now I have to bargain to take a shower.  Even as I sit here typing I am thinking of the 27 other things I ought to be doing - clean the kitchen, prep the CSA vegetables to freeze, work out, make a grocery list, label and freeze my milk from yesterday, vacuum, change out of pajamas for goodness sake!!!  All over pinterest I see people posting articles from blogs about "me time."  Until about a month ago I was so focused on having me time every couple of  days.  Even something simple like sitting outside for 30 minutes in the morning while everyone else in the house is sleeping, I kept thinking "I HAVE to do this, it's SO important."  I've now resolved to the idea that this is a complete myth.  Something invented by self-help authors to sell books to desperate moms so they can have written proof to shove in their husbands' face, "See??  It says I NEED me time!!  Take the kids, I'll be on Pinterest for the next 2 hours."  But I've decided to give it up.  It's a battle not worth fighting.  When I decided to have a baby, I was agreeing (although maybe unknowingly at the time) to give up everything about myself and how my time was spent.  Dinner with friends at 7pm downtown?  Nope.  Coffee date at a swanky new spot in the Gulch on Saturday morning?  No ma'am.  Watching a movie from start to finish on a weeknight??  Forget it sister.  So, should you find yourself in similar circumstances, while you've still got that little bambino in your belly, write down all the little things you enjoy doing in your down time, put them in a shoe box, bury that box in the back yard, say a few words ("we had some good times..") and throw dirt on top of it.  Trust me, your friends who don't have kids have already had a similar ceremony for you, maybe not so formal.  So, now that I've put a dark cloud over motherhood, this isn't to say that it's not worth it.  One day you'll be wearing a milk-stained shirt, smelling like yesterday's spit up, exhausted beyond what you ever thought possible, choking down a protein bar before the next feeding, and Baby will look at you and grin.  And your heart will melt into a puddle on the floor (it's fine, who knows what else is puddled on the floor, when's the last time you mopped anyway?  1 month ago maybe?).  The baby season is a season of "no," at least for the things that you want to/ used to do.  But it's just a season.  The days are long, but the years are so so short.  I have to remind myself everyday that while I am disappointed that I am missing out on time with my friends and time by myself, someday too soon I will have all the free time I want, but I'll wish for these days that Jameson is little.   And suddenly "me time" won't feel so important.