Choose Day

I wake up on Tuesdays and for a split second I have to remind myself what day it is, as I do every morning.  But on Tuesdays I lie in bed and grin broadly.  I feel my heart skip with excitement.  It's Tuesday, or as I like to call it, ‘Choose Day’. 

Tuesdays are my day when I do exactly as I choose.  Once the children are deposited at school, I drive to my creative writing class which lasts from 10 am until midday.  I then walk to a café where I join the other members of the Writer's Lunch.  We spend for a couple of hours sharing our latest work and talking about writing and then it's time to drive home to pick up the children.

I work part-time as a supply teacher and I had got into the habit of taking an afternoon’s work on a Tuesday sometimes, but I recently decided that it was time to protect this day.  For the rest of the week, any time for writing is squeezed in between working, looking after my children, cooking, cleaning and the general demands of everyday life.  But for these few hours on a Tuesday, I can devote myself entirely to the art of writing.  I sit in my writing class and luxuriate in simply being there.  I know that this time tomorrow, I will be teaching a class of thirty children, so these precious hours feel like a gift. 

I need this one day a week when I am nobody’s wife, mother or teacher, I am just me.  As a mother, you can easily lose your identity.  You can forget who you are.  Even in these enlightened times, taking time for yourself can bring on pangs of guilt.  But I know that following my passion makes me a better wife, mother and teacher.  I come home on Tuesdays happy, revitalised and better able to cope with the rest of my week.

I also delight in the fact that my children are now beginning to see me as a writer.  I recently had an article published in the Times Educational Supplement (http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6425461) which started life as a piece of homework for my writing class.  I squealed when I saw it in print and my children cheered with me.  I realised then that I was sending them an important message.  Not only that I am a person in my own right, but that they can achieve their dreams, too.