How to take a day off (actually, can you tell me? I’m bad at it)

Vacation…ah, vacation. A magical word. Whether we’re talking Summer Vacation or Spring Break or just dropping a vacation on a random Tuesday in September, vacation days are often the most anticipated days on the calendar. We exchange stories of where we last traveled second only to how often we talk about the weather (well…maybe. This isn’t a scientific study.). The moment you say you’re taking a vacation, the response is often a a groan of jealously. A day off? Sounds like heaven.

For me, that sensation is still just a theory.

Now, no don’t get me wrong. I still look forward to vacation days. In fact, at the time of drafting this post, I have a handful coming up. I’ve paid for additional vacation days in the past. The moment I say I’m taking vacation days, though, the first question I get asked, “Got any fun plans?”

Oh.

Hm.

I think I forgot that step.

Admittedly, this was exacerbated by the pandemic, but I had this issue prior to 2020. I am terrible at taking days off. Not that I don’t use all my vacation days. I absolutely do! I mean, I’m not going to miss out on that opportunity, if only because it means a day when I can sleep in. If only it means I have some extra time to get chores around my home done (why is there always another pile of laundry to fold?). Even if it only means I finally have time to take my car to the shop to get a recall finally figured out (I need to live closer to a dealership…).

Okay, I think I just made myself sad.

The truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever learned how to take a day off. At the beginning of my career, I definitely think it was partially influenced by the desire to save every dollar possible to pay off student debt. Once that because less of a pressing issue, even then I used my vacation days to focus on writing. It’s kind of hard to come home from work only to have to work on a side-hustle (as I’m sure MANY people can relate to). But this meant that I used to only write on vacation time or weekends.

But what happens when I also take off a day from my side hustle? Not even because I want to but because I don’t have some writing I’m actively working on? Well…then…that’s another issue entirely. And an issue that goes beyond my ability to take a day off. At that point, I also have to address how hard it is for me to take a night off.

Memories of school. Plain and simple.

Quite frankly, the reason I struggle to take as much as a night off is because I was trained by my schooling, since middle school at least, that every moment of my day is not my own. In high school, there were days when I stayed up past 1 am to finish homework. Weekends I spent in the performing arts center at my high school working on props. There were dress rehearsals for musicals where I sat in the dressing room crying over AP Physics homework (cut me some slack; it was AP PHYSICS). If I had so much as an hour to rest, I would slump over in front of the TV because my brain was so exhausted by that point that all I could do was just survive.

Basically, from the time since even before I was a teenager, I was taught that every minute of my life should be spent doing something productive or else it was wasted. And what’s wild is that it is entirely because of the amount of homework given to students.

“Sure,” you say, “we can all agree that homework is ridiculous and too much. But aren’t you an adult who’s been out of school for years?”

I mean, yeah. But here’s the thing about spending your formative years spending every waking moment on school: you spend basically zero time learning about what makes you happy.

What do I do to relax? The same things I did when I was a kid when I was too tired to do anything else. At least, until sitting still fills me with the anxiety that I must be missing some assignment I’m responsible for, even though I’m years away from school. So instead of spending time relaxing, I spend my time off convinced I’m forgetting something.

Maybe I’m alone in this. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m more conscientious than is good for me. But I doubt I’m the only one who is filled with some constant low-level anxiety when they run out of items on their to-do list. Why do you think I’m writing a blog?

SO! When I take a day off, that low-level anxiety I feel in the evenings after work buzzes beneath my skin all day. I should be writing, I should be working on an assignment, I should be being productive and adding some value to the world or adding something to my resume or…

So how do you take time to rest when your brain feels like it’s on fire but the one attacking your thoughts is you?

I’m still learning to forgive myself for taking time to rest. For not beating myself up for spending a day sitting on the couch watching YouTube while a cat sleeps in my lap. Or bringing a book to a coffee shop and chilling there for hours. But it’s not a simple flip of the switch. You can’t so easily turn off the anxiety that is the quiet soundtrack to your existence. Because our lives aren’t meant to be wholly productive all the time, or at least I don’t think so. In a life where there are glorious sunsets and needy snuggly kittens and steep cliff sides and music, how can we be nothing more than machines made for production?

So if you have any tips on how to vanquish that guilt and focus in on the beauty that is the life before us, I’m listening. And if you don’t, then you’re not alone.