My Week Off
Hello everyone! If you didn’t notice, last Monday I completely forgot to post! The reason for this is that I had just started my vacation. Before I requested my time off, I was feeling pretty burnt out. I was working my normal amount of hours, but I hadn’t really had a long time off since my honeymoon two years ago! One morning, I woke up and realized that I didn’t want to go to work for the first time in a long time. That day, I requested a week off. A few days later, one of my favorite coworkers ever unexpectedly died. It was a shock to the entire Skyline crew. I was even more thankful that I was allowed time off. It gave me time to grieve my friend.
Of course, the burn out and the sadness I felt completely took over that weekend, and by the time Monday rolled around, I was completely unaware that it was, indeed, Monday.
Usually I wouldn’t explain myself like this, but I felt really bad about pretending like I didn’t miss last week for whatever reason, so here we are! Now that a whole week has passed, I feel much better than I did last Monday. I feel not only refreshed from my time off, but I feel slightly more at peace with the fact that my coworker won’t be there when I go back to work tomorrow.
I’m not going to talk too much about what I did on my week off because I can do that in the monthly wrapup. Instead, I’m going to tell you all about the importance of taking time for yourself!
Taking time off always sounds like both a good and bad idea to me. I love the idea of not working, but I hate the idea of catching up on a week missed. Thankfully, due to the nature of my job, I don’t have a lot to catch up on. For most of us, however, taking time off means coming back to a week of paperwork missed, a week of meeting recaps, a week of catching up to everyone else in the office. Most people don’t take time off because catching up just sounds too daunting.
Instead of taking time off, lots of people just work and work and work until they can’t anymore. My coworker that passed was the prime example of this. At one point, he had three jobs and worked overtime at all of them (how he did it, I still don’t know). Eventually, his body would just refuse to move, and he would miss a couple of shifts as he recovered from the stress of overworking. Anywhere else, he would’ve been fired for even doing it once. He got away with it, and I genuinely believe he did because we valued his work ethic. We knew he needed to recover in order to come back to work and do it all over again. Looking back on this, I realize that’s totally not how to live.
I used to tell him to take breaks and he would laugh me off. I wouldn’t try too hard to convince him; I rarely take extended breaks/vacations, and I’ve always talked myself out of doing so ever since I entered the work force. Who was I to be the voice of reason when I barely listened to my own advice? Now that I’ve had time to reflect on our friendship, I can’t help but wonder if he’d still be here if I had convinced him to take that weekend off…I don’t dwell on the thought too much, but it does pass through my mind from time to time.
Taking time off for others is usually what people do; maybe your family wants to go on vacation, or your significant other wants to spend an uninterrupted weekend with you. I love spending time with people I love, so this kind of vacation recharges my batteries. However, sometimes you just need time for yourself.
I took my little staycation to recharge my batteries on my own. While I didn’t get a lot of quiet Mary time, I got enough to feel like I can interact with people again. Finding time to be alone is hard. Finding time to be alone is also important. A lot of people don’t like to be by themselves, but I think it’s important to remember that sometimes sitting in silence is healing.
Taking the time to be by yourself, doing things you want to do and going places only you want to go, following your own rules without accommodating for other people…We, as a society, don’t really do that anymore. We’re bombarded with texts and phone calls and social media updates all day and night. Phone apps accost us every day, begging us to use them. Emails pile up from every corner of the Internet. Add the people you see everyday that take up your time and energy, from your coworkers to your family members, and the sensory overload can get, well, overwhelming.
Of course, not everyone can afford to take a week off. Instead, try just taking time for yourself over your weekend. Turning your phone off (or on Do Not Disturb, if you’re like me), shutting yourself away, and taking time to sit and breathe in the peace and quiet that you create for yourself is game changing for your mental health, no matter how long you’ve got before you go back to the daily grind!
Extroverts go crazy when I suggest sitting in silence to them, understandably so. Some people can’t do this even if they try. As someone who has traits of both introverts and extroverts (and as someone who has ADHD), the thought of sitting in silence for a moment can be daunting at best, and impossible at worst. Recharging your batteries doesn’t have to be a solo thing! On my week off, I made a point to not only have time to be alone, but to also spend time with the people that don’t drain my batteries.
You’ll know the people that don’t drain you when you meet them. They can be your family, your best friends, hell, even a person you like at work. Spending time with them (either physically or over the phone/computer…we are still in a pandemic, after all) can have the same effect as spending time alone. Finding people that can not only save you energy, but give you energy, is rare and golden. Go to them when you feel overwhelmed or drained and see what happens!
As usual, my thoughts are all over the place in this post…but one thing I will leave you all with is this: Don’t underestimate just how great taking time off for yourself really is. Not having to do anything but what I want to do all week has been pretty nice, and like I said earlier, my batteries are recharged and I’m ready to go back to work! Please remember to take time off, everyone. I fully believe that both my mental and physical health have improved this week, and I want that for everyone.
Although I took the week off, I’ve been working on things to share with you all. I’ve got a book-related blog post (almost) done, and I plan on taking a snippet of Years Apart (still working on a better title…) and sharing it with you all soon, if I can! So prepare for at least one of those things next week!
I know I’ve been talking about myself a LOT these past few blog posts. If you’re here because I used to write short stories and you’re patiently waiting for more, don’t worry…You’ll have some creative writing to read soon!
If you’d like to keep up with not only new posts, but my day-to-day in general, follow me on Twitter. If you’d like to help me afford to publish Years Apart once I’m finished writing it, feel free to leave a tip on Ko-fi! I’ve got much more to write in this first draft, but I’m saving up now so that I can make the best book I can for anyone who wants to read it.
That’s all this week, everyone! Thank you for reading! See you back here next week (for real, this time)!
