I will be honest – 2020 definitely did not start the way that I expected and hoped that it would! After the nice break from work I had at the end of December, I really came into January with a fresh mindset – I set some goals for the year, and I was feeling good about where I was headed. It felt like such a clean start.
But these past few weeks have been a whole lot of ups and downs. It wasn’t all bad – there were some good surprises thrown in there – but it has been anything but smooth. I’ve had two visits to the ER (don’t worry, I’m feeling much better now!), have not been getting enough sleep, and just have generally felt stressed. And then there’s the fact that it’s January, a month that always seems to drag on for so long, and it’s cold and dreary out a lot.
So I decided that this weekend would be the right time for a reset. It seems like things are calming down a bit for me (fingers crossed!) – or if not calming down, exactly, they’re a bit more stable, at least. So I wanted to make sure I felt more calmed down, too. Sometimes I feel a lot of pressure on the weekends to be productive – write blog posts, work on my master’s essay, work on Accessible YOUniverse planning – that it doesn’t feel like I get much of a break. This weekend is a long weekend for me (I’m off today), but instead of putting more pressure on myself to use that time to be productive, I did the opposite.
I celebrated a friend’s birthday with a tea service… and then when we all decided to go to Starbucks afterwards and catch up for another four hours, I didn’t worry about how long I was out. I watched a lot of TV. I slept in. I did some reading. And when I decided that I wanted to do a little bit of “work” (like writing this post!), it didn’t feel forced – I was doing it because I wanted to, not because I felt like I had to.
Taking the time to relax this weekend was so needed, and I’m so glad that I gave myself this chance. I’m hoping that this reset puts the rest of 2020 (or at least, the rest of January!) on stable footing.