I said one day, you're not going to get to the end of your life and think to yourself I didn't work enough right? And she looked at me like she thought I was crazy. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about taking care of yourself. Now, this is something that us only children really have to think about, especially if we were quote unquote poorly parented. Unquote. Taking care of yourself is really key, right, it's really important. It's really vital to our health, our physical health, our mental health, but sometimes it gets away from us, right. Taking care of yourself important concept in many ways. There's many ways to take care of yourself. Now, I'm reminded of this because if you've been listening recently, you know that I've been talking about my big work project, the big special event, the big dinner that I've been working on. That took place at the end of May and it was a lot of work.

If you've ever done an event for any reason whether it's work or not you know that working on an event is a lot of work. And well for me, because I consider my well, let's just put it this way I do consider myself a perfectionist, or you could call it being an overachiever. Either way, I think there's negative connotations to both terms, but I think of myself more as an overachiever because I think that's more of a modern term. People used to call it a perfectionist, but either way you look at it, you could describe me adequately as either one of those terms. Anyway, I tell people, any job worth doing is a job worth doing well. So I don't do things half-ass right fast. An event is just a lot of work. I like to put a lot of myself into the events. I like to do a lot of the details.

The organization that I work for is not necessarily flush with extra staff to rely on, but granted, I mean we didn't raise hundreds of thousands of dollars From the standpoint of the event and the history of events with this organization and you know, so it's relatively there's not an established history of events with this organization, even though they have a long history. They're not a new organization but in terms of events, they don't have a long established history of events, and that makes a difference when you're fundraising. I mean it just does, because it takes a while for the base of donors, the base of sponsors, to become established and to grow. And so that's really what I started working on this year, this month, june the end of June actually it's June 24th is going to be my one year anniversary with the position, and I wasn't hired to do events. I was hired to do grant writing. But because of my experience right, because of my history with events and fundraising events specifically I was asked to take this project on. So that's where we are. Okay.

So the last couple of weeks, the last month or so, I worked a lot and this job is an hourly job, it's not a salaried position. So I was looking at my timesheet and the last two weeks leading up to the event I put in 50 hours, basically 50 hours each week, which is a lot. It's a lot, okay. Um, I wasn't able to really do anything besides work. I was able to order us food. We did eat every day. The pets ate every day. I was able to gather pet food for the dog and the cat. Most of the plants on our property are still alive. There were a few casualties.

I was able to get gas in the car, but things happened during the last two to three weeks. The washing machine broke. I still haven't gotten that fixed because the house is an absolute disaster. I have to take my car in to have the tires rotated and probably get an oil change, and the service light's been on for, I think, probably close to six weeks, close to six weeks. I take very good care of my car and I've never let it go that long, but I just don't have the time, haven't had the time.

So I took Thursday and Friday off last week and I did get my husband to the ear doctor because he finally complained that he couldn't hear anything, which to me wasn't a surprise because I kept having to yell at him, but I know not to say anything like do you need to go to the ear doctor and get the wax cleaned out of your ears Because he'll get mad. So I just waited until he finally complained. And anyway, we went, found a great new doctor doctor's office to do that. I got the dog to the vet to get her nails trimmed. And what else did I do? Oh, picked up, and I picked up some prescriptions that had been lingering for a while, got gas in the car. We went to one of our favorite restaurants on Saturday, which was fun and I rested.

Here's the thing about taking care of yourself and what I've learned over the years with events. Now, my last job I did the gala dinner. I took care of the. You know, I planned and led the gala dinner for 23, 24 years, I don't remember and this was a dinner where we raised, you know, three, four, $500,000, right, we had maybe 300 people, maybe 400 people come big. I mean, it's a sizable event, right.

And I remember afterwards I would just be dead tired. And this is starting like 25 years ago, right, when I was a lot younger. Yes, I'll say it, I was a lot younger. And so afterwards I you know, I still have the adrenaline going, but I would just need to. I learned, I would just need to stop, I would need to tell myself to stop and I would need to give into it and I would need to rest, I would need to sleep, I would need to just slow myself down.

And that was the hardest part, because working on events, you get really caught up in the energy of it. I love the energy, I love the pace, I love the excitement of it, but it really wears you out and afterwards you really need to slow yourself down and you need to rest, because I remember there were many years that I didn't rest and I would be super grumpy and I would be just really out of sorts with everyone. And it was funny because my former boss never rested. She was so dedicated to her job. Now, remember, she died. She died of a heart attack and I think it's because she worked herself to death, but I can't prove that. But she never rested and so, of course, she didn't work as hard as I did on the event either. She did, she did help out, she did do things, but she, she would never take time off. And afterwards she, she never understood why I needed a day or two off. I needed to rest, I needed to, you needed to sleep so that I wouldn't be grumpy and I would be like, come on, give me a break.

So this time was no different. I was really caught up in the energy of it all and I really realized that I really do enjoy it. But there's that drop off afterwards. There's that you know, the adrenaline push and then, and then the event, and then it's over, and then you don't have that. Well, you couldn't run your body like that forever, right, but the event is over and you don't have that frenetic pace anymore. And then it's like what do I do now, right? Well, so I've spent a lot of time sleeping. I've spent a lot of time, just you know, binge watching shows on Netflix or whatever.

I've tried. I've tried to be out in the garden and work in my yard and revisit, pulling weeds or doing things being out in nature, feel the air again, because I sat with my laptop so much. I sat with my laptop so much. I sat with my laptop a lot it's my best friend and sent a lot of emails. What I keep having to remind myself is that I need to stop and I need to rest and I need to take care of myself.

And this is a hard lesson sometimes, right, because nobody. You know I'm 60, I'll say it, I'm 63. And no one's going to tell me to rest. I mean, maybe my husband will, but nobody's going to say okay, tracy, this is the time when you rest, this is the time when you sleep. You look exhausted, but it's important, it's the work-life balance, and the time to work 50 hours a week is gone, it's over with for now and it's time to go back to my 30 hours a week. So that's something I really missed doing things around the house and taking care of my house and just spending time with my dog or spending time with my cat, or spending time out in the front yard. Or I'm already thinking about, dare I say it, I'm already thinking about my Halloween decorations, and there's a lot of stuff that I still want to do around the house and I want to clean up all the mess that I've made in the last month or two. So, anyway, taking care of yourself is something that you know. Sometimes you have to be, you have to adult yourself, you have to be adulting and you have to tell yourself what you need to do and sometimes you need to just be the responsible party for yourself. Very important, very important plan there. So that's my message to you is remember to take care of yourself.

I watch people all the time that I don't think they're taking care of themselves. I think they're working too much. I don't think they're taking care of themselves. I think they're working too much. I always thought that about my last boss, and look what happened to her. But the thing is that you can't always tell people right, people aren't always going to listen to you.

I remember I told Ruth was her name. I told Ruth. I said one day you're not going to get to the end of your life and think to yourself I didn't work enough, right? And she looked at me like she thought I was crazy. Was I crazy? No, was I off the mark? No, she worked too much. I mean, I guess she enjoyed it. That was her choice, right. But I feel bad that maybe she could have enjoyed things a little bit more and worked a little bit less or a lot less. You know, life is short. So ultimately, it's really up to each of us to take care of ourselves and not just to sleep, not just to rest, but to eat right, to eat the right foods, to drink enough water, to drink enough fluids, to eat the right things, not the wrong things. Right, it's up to us to take care of ourselves, and especially for only children, especially for single people, it's so important because we're the ones that need to take care of ourselves. That's my message for you all that are listening, and now I'm going to go out in the yard and water something to make sure I don't lose any more plants. But next week we're going to tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me.

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