Bringing Mae Flowers

There is a long list of things I should be doing now.

I should be taking product photos and making new signs for my business. I should be building out the new website and working posting for promotion. I should be updating my resume and LinkedIn profiles and applying for jobs. I should be working on one of my two novel drafts, editing some poems, or submitting pieces for publication. There is a million things I should be doing, but I’m not doing any of it.

You don’t realize how tired you are until you stop running.

I’ve been officially unemployed (or technically self-employed) for a week. I thought that once I wasn’t working every day, I would finally have the time and mental space to do all the things I haven’t been able to. While I am no longer too stressed to eat or think straight, I am too still too tired to get anything done. Every single day since I left my job, all I’ve wanted to do is sleep. I feel like a small child, who needs a nap after lunch time to keep functioning. No matter how well I slept the night before, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. It’s like my body is attempting to catch-up on years of unrest in a single week.

I feel guilty for needing rest.

I’ve had to take leaves of absence from work due to health in the past. I would literally work myself sick, until I was forced to take time to recover. Even during those times, I was still a full-time student and continued doing “side hustles” to pay the bills. No matter how sick I’ve been, the idea of “taking time off” always filled me with anxiety and guilt. Even now, when I logically understand that rest is best, and I am in a good financial place to do so- all I can think of is everything I could or should be doing.

I can hide behind work.

When I’m working, I can chalk up my business’s slow growth and my lack of progress in writing to time constraints. I can pretend that I would be successful if I only had the time to focus. In that sense, working is just a way to hide my insecurity about my abilities. When I’m not working, and I have the time that I said was holding me back, I am presented with the possibility that it was never the time and energy that I lacked. I may have to face a reality that I was the problem all along.

Of course, It’s only been a week.

My last day was only a week ago. There is no reason I should be beating myself up over everything I’m not doing, when I should be congratulating myself on everything I have done. When I reframe the last week in that way, I realize that this week hasn’t been a waste at all. Because I:

-Quit a job that was causing me undo anxiety and stress.

-Prepared enough product to make it through all the events and markets I will be attending in the month of December

-Applied (and interviewed) for several new jobs

-Caught up on much needed sleep.

I don’t know what the next few weeks or months will bring. Maybe I will start a new job before the New Year, or maybe I’ll continue to experiment with self-employment. Maybe I’ll get my new business website launched (I will shamelessly self-promote it here if I do), and maybe I’ll even get something published. I have only given myself one goal this season; to be kinder to myself. Winter is a time to rest and reflect, so that’s what I am going to do.