Family Staycation
I was supposed to be with my family today. We called off our trip because my parents caught COVID. It's been over 2 years, and the pandemic still has a chokehold on my plans.
Cancelling is a familiar feeling after long lockdown winters and holidays away from home. This time it’s a summertime sadness.
It’s Getting Hot in Here
I have the next 6 days off with very few plans. Beautiful summer weather should be enticing, but the heat wave is seeping indoors.
My apartment is a pressure cooker of my own making. When I’m near my to-do list, all I can think about is my next deadline, the projects I haven’t finished, and all the ways I’m not measuring up to my own impossible standards.
I sweat just by being in the same proximity as my laptop.
While the sun pokes through my windows, I have frozen myself over. The loop in my head tells me that I’m simultaneously wasting my life by working too much and not getting anything done. My stocks are plummeting, my anxiety is rising, my family time is evaporating, and all I want to do is numb myself with Desperate Housewives.
Too much time without plans teeters me to the brink of insanity.
When I get outside, the crushing temperature switches from internal to external. My sizzling skin forces the stress out of my mind and into something tangible. The quickest way to stop my brain from overheating is to warm up my muscles.
Sadly, my body isn’t a much better place to be.
Playing around with email signatures
Body Break
For too long I have been over-scheduled, under-motivated, and lacking basic vitamins. I get so caught up in my thoughts that I forget about my body. I never notice the way I hunch over my laptop to write. I push through the ache in my hip when I'm on the couch for too long. I ignore the permanent fold in my neck that follows me away from the keyboard.
I’ve been writing about burnout for so long that my body has become battered.
A summer spent behind screens is blatantly evident in my skin. I went out for lunch with a friend and noticed that my legs are stark white and splotchy in the sun. The bags under my eyes have found permanent residency. My first grey hair is sprouting behind my curtain bangs like it’s discreetly waiting for its cue on the main stage.
Morning face rollers clamber over knots in my jaw that grow each night I gnaw at my mouth guard. The muscles strain all the way into my skull and down my upper back. It’s like every tiny bit of stress has been shoved into my bite.
My body feels best when I’m active, but my exercise routines wreak their own havoc. Bruises from pole dance splay across my hips, inner thighs, and forearms. My fingers are stiff from gripping the metal, and my toes cramp from hours spent in heels.
The pain rears its head most when I stop moving - at the gym or otherwise. The first Christmas I didn’t go home, I got shingles. My 2020 birthday staycation yielded a dead tooth. In each case, the symptoms were held at bay purely by my own busyness. The second I stopped, I was vulnerable to an attack.
This found time is leaving me defenceless.
Looking at Facebook posts from high school
I’m Gonna Soak Up The Sun
A few days ago I shared a book on my Instagram filled with dark drawings. Two artists got together and made a list of things they could do “instead of killing themselves.” Among my favourites are these:
Start wearing hats
Secretly live in an indoor botanical garden
Angrily scroll through old texts in an idyllic atmosphere
Vote for a presidential candidate that won’t get elected
Feed ducks
The humour is twisted, but the sentiment is sound: there is always a way to find joy in pain. The authors note that making light of their experience and mental health is cathartic. Together they worked through the worst of their suffering and came out the other side with something beautiful.
It’s not a book for everyone, but it sure as hell spoke to me.
In particular, the last page warmed my heart. Instead of killing yourself, you can “make something sad with someone you like.”
Often, I use this blog as my “something sad.” I spill my darkness on a webpage as a way to take it out of my brain. Acknowledging my tendencies to spiral is a preventative step. For me, it's a necessary one.
Chances are this staycation will be a fun reset. Despite the blow of not seeing my family, I will use my days off to soak up the sun and absorb every ounce of vibrancy that I can.
I’m going to sweat the sadness and soreness out of me.
And, if all else fails, here is a list of things I can do instead of breaking down in my apartment:
Start wearing hats
Stretch in the heat
Have a midday drink with friends
Get a massage
Feed ducks
What’s on your list?
