The Micro-Mini Vay-Kay

So today's coping mechanism is the micro-mini "vay-kay" (I totally love that LA-ism)... or in desperate times, the mental health day.

My life is chaotic. Organised, happy chaos, but still chaos. So every once in a while I decide it's all just a little bit too much and I just check out of my life. It's micro-mini because sometimes, it's a check out of only an hour. Other times, two hours. Sometimes, when I'm really desperate, it's all the hours between school drop off and pick up. So what happens during a micro-mini vacation?

Well, I'll tell you what DOESN'T happen...

I do not:
- think about: kids, husbands, houses (or bits thereof), money, work, school, or anything even remotely responsible and grown up,
- think about the caloric intake of anything I ingest,
- consider anybody's needs other than my own,
- worry about my clothing, hair or general appearance including any smells or noises which may emanate from anywhere on or around my body

So if it's a only an hour that I've got, I might spend it on the couch eating marshmallows and watching an episode of The Ellen Degeneres Show. If it's two hours, I might spend it sitting in the rattan chair in the sunroom reading a novel. If it's three hours, I might go to the mall by myself, order whatever lunch I want, and people watch. The point is I spend that time doing whatever I feel like, how I feel like, and for as long as I can get away with it. It's all about ME and the QUIET.

If it's a full blown mental health day, here is how it goes:

- Drop kids off
- Stop at 7-11 on the way home, where I stock up on a Coke Slurpee, some really expensive potato chips (you know, the rrrreeeaaaallllyyyy good ones), some really expensive ice cream (the kind we don't tell kids about) and a whole STACK of trashy, crappy magazines. I want to know which celeb is doing who, which celeb is in rehab, which is bemoaning their Botox gone wrong, and which of them is dating Jennifer Aniston this week. I might, if I'm feeling just a TAD grown up, get a Women's Weekly.
- Return home. Throw off clothes with gay abandon and put back on pajamas including a pair of very fuzzy and warm socks.
- Make large mug of very sweet, very milky tea and grab an extra spoon.
- Return to bed, with mug on night stand, ice cream under duvet (for insulation purposes, natch) and chips on DH's pillow. Mags on my lap.

...and then I spend the day in blissful, indulgent solitude. The WHOLE day (until school pick up time, and let me tell you I avoid getting up until the very last second.)

I tell NOBODY that I'm having this day. I don't tell DH (and I get rid of the evidence), don't tell my kids, don't tell ANYONE because then they might disturb my peace and that, my friends, would be sacrilege on the holiest of holy mental health days. I also click my mobile phone to voice mail, refuse to turn the computer on, and won't answer the phone if it dares to ring.

It's not unusual for me to decide, spur of the moment, to have a mental health day. I've been know to call in sick to work just to have one (although I don't recommend doing that after one has blogged about it...). It happens only maybe once or twice a year, max. BUT a micro-mini vay-kay is purely for nourishing the soul. It just kinda re-sets my mood, my outlook, my general demeanour. Really, how bad can things look from the bottom of a chip bag and the puzzle page of Who Weekly? When I don't have time for the full blown day, just that SINGLE hour or two hours of solitude is enough to make everything right again. Even if "everything" is just what's buzzing around in my head.

For those of you reading this thinking, "But I don't have time!" "I've got so much washing/working/whatever to do!" and 5 hundred other (probably valid) excuses for not doing this for yourself..... let me say right now that time for myself, time for ME - is my single most important coping mechanism. Indulgent? Maybe. Totally necessary? Absolutely.