In my last post, I wrote about a book I read recently (Wintering, by Katherine May) that hit really close to home during this current season of my life. It very much influenced me to give thoughtful and meaningful consideration to a number of things, including how I’m taking care of myself, and mentally and emotionally managing the transitions and adaptations of the past year. It also inspired me to take some time to do something I’d never done before: take time off work just to rest and do anything and nothing, all at once.
I’m an incredibly Type A personality. I have lists for my lists. I have tasks I’d like to accomplish planned out until 2023…in detail. Google Calendar is a tab that hasn’t been closed on my web browser since 2012. I plan everything within an inch of its life, for better or for worse (and it’s often both). I have a list of usually two dozen tasks to complete each day. As a child of military parents, with OCD coursing through the veins of my immediate ancestors, and years spent doing three theatre productions at a time, at all times, while also going to school and working and traveling and volunteering and taking dance classes and leading or heavily participating in social events and clubs and organizing things for myself and others and making time for family and friends and…well, it’s not hard to see where my tendencies originated and why I both love and hate this particular quality about myself, and understand it for what it is – both a great blessing and an infuriating curse.
Thinking back, I can’t recall a single time, since I entered adulthood, that I used my vacation days or time off work to simply rest or do nothing. Every single personal day or vacation day has been used to travel, visit family or friends, attend a wedding, explore something (with a plan, of course), go somewhere, or stick to be pre-arranged agenda of fun. After all, I love to adventure, and I really don’t want to reach the end of this life and look back on my time alive, only to have to reckon with myself for missing out on the wonder, beauty, and awesomeness of the world. I used to think, what was the point of taking vacation if you weren’t going to really embrace it and live it to the fullest – actually go somewhere or do something meaningful with it? And, so, all time off or vacation days involved…yup, more planning to get ready for that rest! Booking flights and hotels, researching destinations and restaurants and things to see and do, making packing lists, buying travel insurance, preparing the house and pets for our absence, cleaning, etc. It was exhausting. And hardly ever restful, despite being fun and exciting and rewarding.
As I daydreamed about all the wonderful, inviting, and cozy suggestions Wintering had for how to re-learn the art of rest, retreat, and recovery, it dawned on me that I had no idea how to just…be. How to not have something scheduled or somewhere I should be or something I should be doing. My brain is not programmed to think that way (or to not think at all) by society, or by myself. Truthfully, if not for the pandemic, I’m not sure I would have discovered or read this book, or ever even tried taking days off without intent to do something specific with them. I’m aware that this is a strange thing to say, and I’m very sure this someone out there (probably many someones) would be utterly horrified by this, or find themselves rolling their eyes so hard that they rolled clear down the street, or thinking “cry me a river” or simply basking in complete dumbfounded bafflement and perplexion, but once I decided to take a full week off to do nothing but rest and relax with no plans, I knew I was in for a challenge. Learning how to rest and relax, when you’re not used to doing it, is actually hard. And that feels like the most privileged and entitled statement I’ve ever written, but it’s also true and I have to come to terms with that and own it.
I should also add that I feel very fortunate to have been able to take a full week off of my job to do something like this. I recognize that many, many people do not have the privilege of things like paid time off or vacation days with which to work on the art of doing nothing. Many people work four jobs, none of which are salaried or offer paid leave benefits, and when they’re not working or do get a rare day off, they’re doing anything and everything else they have to do for survival – theirs or their family’s. And that stinks. I really wish it were different. I wish everyone was paid an appropriate and comfortable living wage for the work they do, and that taking time off to not work or think about work, but instead to take care of one’s own mental and emotional health or to recover from something or to simply enjoy living or alone time or time with loved ones or to travel and appreciate the world or to have the mere opportunity to rest was treated as a right everyone is entitled to rather than a luxury. But that’s not how most western countries are set up or operate. And I think that’s a real shame and contributes immensely to quite a lot of personal and societal issues. If we just started prioritizing people over profits and invested in taking better care of ourselves, and if society and places of employment supported that, I think we’d all be much happier, healthier, efficient, and profitable. The proof lies in other countries who have successfully navigated this and are reaping the positive results of this investment in the dignity of human needs.
Anyway, I fought back, mostly successfully, each impulse I had (and they were frequent, at first) to plan fun things I wanted to do each day. I compromised by scratching up a list of ideas of things I could do, but in no order and with absolutely no obligation to do any of them – just things that, if I felt antsy or bored, I could peek at this list and think, “yeah, I would like to work on a puzzle right now, that sounds nice!” And that’s about as un-planned as I get – and, for someone like me, it took real intention and effort to do nothing more than that.
As the vision for this week of rest was to give my mind a break and simply follow my impulses to engage in what I wanted or needed to do for myself when it felt right, I laid a few very basic ground rules to help myself make the most of this time: I wanted to catch up on sleep. I wanted to make sure I continued my daily exercise (which I don’t even think about doing anymore, it just happens by habit) and that I gave myself plenty of water and nutritious food. I tried to severely limit social media or time spent on my phone, online, on social networks, or taking in the news and events of the world – none of this is problematic on its own, but when it becomes a constant influx of information 24/7, it can be harmful and I needed a break from it all. And that was it. Those were my rules.
By Sunday night, I was giddy with excited for this week to come, and – truthfully – exhausted and wholly ready for it. I’ve said it before, but even though I feel like I’m doing less than ever before with working from home and the pandemic and no commute and no social obligations and limited everything else, my brain is still working to process all this and learn the new skills I need for this new time and way of living. My brain is still adapting and coping and figuring out how to focus and motivate, and how to do the work I do (work that is wholly dependent on being in-person and extremely communal and community-based), remotely and without people. And I while I’ve battled over and over again with myself about this, I’ve ultimately begun to grant myself some grace and accept that all that different thinking is tiring, and that extra brain effort and work turns into fatigue and manifests itself mentally, emotionally, and physically. So, even though I work from home right now and feel incredibly fortunate to do so and to be healthy and secure and comfortable, there’s still coping and worry and anxiety of all kinds happening, and there’s still exhaustion, and I need to learn how to rest so I can recover. And that’s what the intention of this week was about.
In my next post (’cause this got, unintentionally, lengthy!) I’ll finally share how it all went, what I felt like doing, and how it tied back in with the book and the concept of wintering.
