I worked like a 'traditional' breadwinner, and never felt more relaxed

Last week, for the first time since I had my first child 20 years ago, I worked like a "traditional male breadwinner", and I've never felt more professionally relaxed.

It was quite the week; I started a new job for the first time in a decade, learned all the systems that come along with joining a new employer, and flew interstate for three days of meetings and productive work, plus a night time work function.

This was me, and many women like me, during the early years of working parenthood. You get it all done, and well, but there is plenty of mental heavy lifting.

I had not travelled without the family since I can recall, preferring to do everything by phone to allow me to keep the kids' lives smooth and calm,  so even leaving kids aged 20, 18 and 14 for a few days felt alien. I am separated, so the elder ones would be alone (Ms 14 went to her best friend's house, thank God for the generosity of other mums).

It sounds pathetic, but I wondered how I would go not knowing everyone was fed and able to get where they needed to go without me to call on to drop everything at work and bring in that vital sport uniform they had forgotten (daughter), or get out of bed to collect them late at night from their hospitality job if it was raining (sons).

I left the fridge full, changed the smoke alarm batteries and felt very weird pulling away in the taxi. Just so you know, I am no martyr or control freak, I love a rest as much as the next person and did not sign up to carry what is commonly referred to as the "mental load" of running the home and kids' routines as well as my career. That is the rut I fell into, and once there, I did not know how to get out. It felt easier to work very hard at getting super organised than to try to reinvent the "traditional" marital wheel and routine, by which the woman makes the lunches and other meals, cleans and runs the domestic schedule.

By the end of the week I had pushed out a large volume of work, met lots of deadlines and met lots of new colleagues, spent plenty of time in meetings and started forward planning for coming weeks in my new job. It was one of the more full on weeks of recent years, but it was thoroughly refreshing.

Without exaggeration, despite a long commute each day and night, plus the vertical, professional learning curve, I came home feeling like I'd been on a mini-break.

Over the weekend, I kept waiting for the lag to kick in, that information overload inertia you can feel after being fully immersed in a new work environment from a standing start. But it never came. I felt energised.

How could I have pulled up less tired after that kind of week than any other week, when I was working more flexibly to allow me to collect Ms 14 from school often, or working at home if I needed to finish a piece of writing plus manage family logistics?

I can only conclude that without even realising it, people who find themselves doing dual roles and insisting to themselves that they do both to a very high standard are cheating themselves if they do not insist that some of the home load is divested.

We all need the chance to just think about only one thing at once, complete our daily tasks without a sense we are being chased by a tiger that will eventually catch and eat us, and to protect our health by allowing ourselves some kind of actual mental downtime. It's a first world problem, sure, but you're no good to anyone, and potentially you're a burden on the health system, if you let yourself be run to the ground trying to carry too much.

In that week of living single-ly I felt more creative, mentally vital and had more fun with the work, rather than sprinting through it. I felt less anxious about the expectation I would finish my day with things still hanging over me, annoyingly, that I simply did not have enough waking hours to get physically done.

I hate to say it, but I hardly missed the darling children from whom I have done everything not to be separated even for a night or two for two decades; I felt light, clear-headed and happy. I knew they would be OK and wondered why I had not allowed myself this luxury before. Turns out all three were happy for me having a great new experience.

I didn't resent coming back and resuming my role as the engine room and the box ticker, I resumed feeling blessed I have what I have.

But as roles in both workplaces and marriages experience a healthy and bracing disruption, my deep hope for other women, and men, is they find ways to distribute the mental and logistic load of running jobs and families in a way that allows time to renew, for both.

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