Take a Break

By the time you're reading this, I'll be on a boat in the middle of the ocean somewhere- hopefully not stranded- drinking a lot of flaming martinis and taking naps in my bathing suit. Today though, I'm sitting here writing this while also recovering from a particularly intense weekend. I've never been shy about admitting I was once a pretty extreme party girl- I went pretty hard in my early 20s. I've slowed way down as I've gotten older, but I can still hit a wild streak during times of stress here and there. I'm what I call a party-griever. You know that widow that goes out a week after her husbands death for a boob job, buys a six thousand dollar dress to go dance and drink entirely too much with strangers then has the whole town talking about her for years after? Yeah- that's me.

As I've gotten older I've learned better ways to handle stress that don't include drinking- and I'm sure my liver thanks me- but lately all of life's little (and some very large) stresses have been trying to knock me down. So here I am, bruised and sore from falling... literally (I still maintain that I've tripped over that same step 100 times sober, so it wasn't just because I had been drinking) and with no voice from taking late night drives with the top down screaming just to let it all out. I sound like a disaster, I know- and I kind of am one... but a fully functional adult disaster. I actually contemplated on not sharing it so you would still take me seriously but I fell back on my transparency policy. I cant preach what I don't practice. In a week or so you'll see me on white beaches with blue water but unless I shared with you what got me there- all you'd see was sparkle and I don't want people to only see and compare their lives with my sparkliest bits.


I think I've mentioned it before, but I run myself ragged sometimes. I've been called a busy body. I constantly fill my schedule with things because any down time makes me feel unaccomplished. I havent been on a real vacation in a few years. I have only taken 2 days completely off work the whole year. A few months ago I saw the signs of me starting to burn out. Work was too much, my relationship was starting to hit a few bumps more often, my body was exhausted, my mind wasn't as sharp.. I knew it was time I had to take a break. I went home and said, "Thats it. we are planning a vacation." and that night we did.  I'm so thankful we did because things have not gotten any easier in the last two months and with t-minus 2 weeks from leaving it is taking all my strength not to burn entire villages down. I should have done it more often and earlier. Taken a break, not burn down villages. Thats dark.

We always give ourselves reasons for why we cant take care of ourselves. Its a part of our culture here to always be "busy". Busy is a sign of importance now for some crazy reason. Between work, school, baseball practice, play dates, social calendars etc we have so much to do, but we rarely do things for ourselves. Taking a break, even if its just a little stay-cation where you take a bath every night with a glass of wine for a week or take a weekend to go shopping for you only does so much more for your mental health than you realize. If you have vacation days- use them. You may think you're going to miss too much being out a week but you'll be less productive and miss even more if you work while you're burnt out.

If youre not treating yourself right you'll never be able to treat others well. Take the time to feel good and it will radiate from you naturally.