Personal holidays

Today and tomorrow, I'm taking personal holidays. It's incidental that today is also MLK Day--I decided, when I was deciding how I want my life to be, that every two weeks I'll take two days off on the full moon and the dark moon, so that I can rest my carpal tunnel and my brain.

Today, of course, I had to fill orders and I spent a lot of time setting up future posts on Professional Fangirl, but I didn't worry about getting up early, I didn't do a single word of my daily writing or a single line of my drawing practice, I didn't do laundry or clean my room, I didn't do anything that I usually have to do unless I wanted to.

I took a mini vacation.

And lemme tell you, my brain feels so much better for it.

See, a mind is like a virtual muscle--if you use it too much, it can get strained, and it can twist itself up and lock down and not be any real use to anyone. But when you schedule in days to have off--which is very important when you don't have an external schedule dictating when your days off will be--you know when you can rest. You can look forward to those days off, work hard the rest of the time*, and when you get to the days off, you can actually be off.

So when's your next day off? What day-off thing will you do--or not do--to let your mind and soul and body unwind a little? Schedule that baby in and do something for you, because you want to do it. Or don't do a damned thing, because you're always doing something. Or do something, but not as much.

The important part is to know ahead of time when you have these days, and to keep that appointment with yourself.

NOTES:

*Or as hard as you can. Half this past week I got very little done, but I worked as hard as I could and I'm still exhausted. Sometimes the best you can do is try, and trying is as tiring as doing your peak-best.