I help a small charitable organisation when I can. Although I'm normally only able to spend the odd day helping them out, last weekend my DDs and I stayed with them for 4 day. Much of the work is physical and can be demanding and by the time I came home I was knackered! Problem is, I've kind of said I will stay over and help this week too, if I'm able to find a few consecutive days by working around the charity's commitments as well as my own, but I now realise that I really don't want to.
This week will be the first time in ages that I have a break from my DDs (lone mum, girls are going to stay at Grandparents') which should actually be a break. On other occasions when they have gone to Grandma's I've been decorating/preparing to move house/ill etc. Last summer hols whilst they were away for 7 days I spent the week working for the charity, staying in a caravan with no running hot water and mosquitoes galore!
It's not that I don't love being there (apart from the mozzies!), it's just that I desperately need some 'me' time, something I've had very little of over the past 13 years of life as a divorced mum. I'm a poor sleeper at the best of times and am exhausted, with a very challenging DD2, so the thought of a few days totally to myself, to sleep when I like, go where I like as do as I please is bliss. I fear that the charity's owner will take it as a personal slight if I bale out as he and I are good friends and he always makes it clear how he values my contribution and how much (as is true) they rely on their volunteers but I still feel the need to recharge my batteries and take time to just 'stop and smell the flowers'.
AIBU not to go?