Why I Stopped Talking About Work at Home

When I leave my home, it is dark outside. When I return home, in the evening, it is dark outside. When my husband asks about my day, the response is always the same, “Fine.”

Sometimes, a heavy sigh comes before the “fine.”  Other times, the statement brings a small smile.  I cannot for the life of me recall the day or time I stopped elaborating.  I cannot remember when my husband accepted my one word answer as a sufficient response before moving on to other topics of conversation.

If I had to guess, I would say it was around the time I began to pray for peace and balance.  The days I ran out of tears to cry, frustrations to feel, anger to transfer to my own children.  Perhaps, it took place when I began to declutter, and I started with myself.  Maybe it came when I decided I would rather sleep than stress…

One would think that I hated my job, but the reality is quite the opposite.  I love my job.  I love my co-workers, and I LOVE those children, and that is why I stopped talking about work at home.  Whenever the day occurred, I accepted that perhaps I loved them a little too much.  Perhaps I was a part of an unhappy, one-sided relationship doomed to failure if something did not change.  So I changed – to save us both, not because I loved them any less but because I loved them too much to lose them.

It is not that I do not EVER talk about them, but I limit myself for the sake of their sanity and my own.  I have learned that I can literally love something to death…a hobby…a personal item…a relationship.  So I decided that I loved them too much for that so 12 hours a day was  all that they could have.  Not one minute more…

And the minute, I separated my life from my work without forgetting that my work was an integral part of my life, we both won for a variety of reasons.

1. I gave God control.  A friend of mine sent me a message that stuck with me earlier this week: “We have a single priority every day – to trust God with the outcome” – Anonymous.  The simple thought came from an inspirational calendar, no author.  I cannot find the orignator in the first page of my google search.  Each day, I have one job and one job only.  Trust God.  Worry, stress, late nights, and early mornings add nothing.  So when I walk away from that school at 4:45, I hang up teacher life for a moment.  I can pick it up again in the morning before the sun rises.
2. I live in the moment.  I have a total of two hours to eat, do homework, play, read to, and prepare my children for bed from the instant my toe hits the door step.  Right now, they fight for my attention.  They want to learn whatever letter I am teaching, whatever number I am counting.  They want me to put smiley faces on the lines where they write their name correctly, and frowns where I do not.  They want to play school, and they want me to be the teacher (GO FIGURE!!)  They want to play whatever version of Mickey and the Roadster Racers they have created.  They want to play whatever game we made up that was never intended to be a game but ended in laughter, so they want to “play that game again.”  I do not get these moments back.  Right now is it.  Today.  This.  I have zero moments left to discuss a place that dominated the majority of my day – good or bad.
3. I rest. I sit with my husband on the couch and watch Big Bang Theory.  I exercise.  I develop picture to make Valentines Day trees.  I shop for oversized black sweaters.  I nose through social media.  I do whatever I feel like doing and make no apologies for doing it.

No matter whether you love or hate your job, a job is just that – a job.  It need only be a piece of who you are not the entire picture.  I laugh to myself as I hear God saying, “Brittany, you had only one job!…You had ONE JOB!”  And it had nothing to do with work.  “Give your day to Me.  Trust that I can make the most of it.”  So I do.

And I advise you to do the same.  Give it to God.  Enjoy all the moments you have leftover, and then sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.  Watch Him transform your ordinary into extraordinary.

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What are some things you do to separate work life from home life? How has this separation aided you?

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