This may come as a shock to anyone who hasn’t known me for more than an hour, but… I’m not very good at moderation. I know! Can you believe it? Who knew?

In some ways this makes me ideally suited to freelancing, because I’m driven and I’m not one to do things part-way. I’m in it, baby! I’m giving it my all, because less is not an option. Because I am driven and a little bit obsessive.

This can, of course, result in challenges when trying to balance the demands of working and parenting. And I think we all talk about that particular balancing act; we all want to be our best professionally and be our best for our kids… but between those two things and taking care of the minutiae of life, we often forget that we need to take care of ourselves (as Nataly has already noted). And then there’s our marriages or partnerships, if we happen to have them, as Penelope Trunk recently addressed with great eloquence.

In the midst of this tremendous juggling act, as my own boss I find that I am simply loathe to do the one thing that people who work in conventional office settings do regularly, sometimes even at the direction of management: Take a vacation. The reasons are many and all are reasonable justification; I don’t get paid when I don’t work, I don’t want to jeopardize client relationships by being unavailable, I fear an opportunity may pass by and I’ll miss it.

So what do I do? When I need to be away, I double up on work before I leave. I bring my computer and work while I’m gone, or I come home ten times as stressed about all I’ll need to do to catch up. You are looking at a woman who has worked through serious illnesses, major trauma with the kids, and—I’m embarrassed to admit this one—even my wedding and honeymoon.

Doesn’t that sound nice and relaxing?

In a couple of weeks I’ll be picking up and moving my family over a thousand miles. I’ve spent a lot of time juggling everything associated with making this move happen, and up until this weekend didn’t plan to take a break from any of my paid work. Because I am an idiot. In a flash of clarity I saw that not only would it be okay for me to take some time off, it’s the only logical choice.

With great trepidation, I approached a regular client yesterday morning to ask they’d be able to accommodate giving me a week off. And they said… yes. Just like that. Huh. That wasn’t so hard.

I hope I remember this the next time I make the mistake of thinking the sky might fall if I put my arms down.