On my Career and Fitness Levels
May 12th, 2016 Posted by Maria Kostaki Tabula Rasa No Comment yetI was holding the phone with my shoulder talking to an old friend on Monday morning, while making lentil soup. She and I signed up at the gym together and she was wondering why I don’t come very often.
“Like what do you do all day?” she asked, “I mean besides the kid.” (Note that she’s a very successful, currently child-free, career woman.)
My first reaction was to yell at her, but the decades that our friendship has endured, stopped me. I understood her question, because I’ve wondered the same thing myself, back in the day. I calmly explained my current state of being, and cited that it’s before ten in the morning and I’m already frying onions, as an examle to drive my explanation home.
And then I did the following.
For the next four days, for the four-and-a-half hours that my son is at school, I sat in a chair, did research, came up with story ideas, looked up competitions; I worked. I did not run errands, haul supermarket bags, clean the house, nor do laundry. I cooked, but cooking has always been a part of my creative process. I loaded a dishwasher with one pot, two forks and one plate. I picked up my son from school, spent non-annoyed quality time with him (I even made playdough from scratch), till he went to bed, and felt alive, accomplished, proud, fulfilled, and bursting with energy to go to the gym with the after-work crowd. Only I couldn’t. There was noone to babysit.