A Lesson in Selfcare: Taking a Week Away from Work

When emotions are high, it is good to pause and take a break. 

I decided to give myself time to assess my life. I planned to look into myself and see what and where I wanted to be from now on.

I realized that balancing my work, personal responsibilities, commitments, and blog forces me to course through the day without time to think and reflect. I rush through life from one requirement, paying one bill, and writing one blog entry to the next. At the same time, I am trying to think of possible things I can do to be more active on social media and my job hunt.

The past months have been of me applying for job after job. Many of these applications do not come close to the second stage of the application process. I was either automatically rejected or scared. Sometimes I refused to submit an introductory video or join their group zoom call because of fear.

If I look at it, I am merely floating by. I feel so disconnected from the whole experience. I forget to stop and smell the flowers. Selfcare is out the window.

The company I work in has something called a Mandatory Leave. These leaves are required by financial institutions (not all) to prevent internal scams. If you are running an underground heist, disappearing for five days straight could put a big hole in your operation. Where I work, not availing of this is an auditable offense, but if the unit is heavily burdened, they could force you to forego this right.  Sadly, this leave was not designed for your pleasure but more for the benefit of the company. That does not mean you couldn’t use the time to truly care for yourself.

Without any further ado, here was how my 5-day break went:

Day 1- The lazy Day

I wanted to sleep in. Although I decided to sleep in on the weekend and told myself to start Monday on a high note, I just slept.

Do you remember the feeling of cool summer mornings and the joy of doing nothing in bed? 

I hope this helps you on your next vacation! 

Day 2- Life never goes as planned: Vaccination

After months on the waitlist and weeks of being questioned on my vaccination schedule, it came. Was I excited? Not really. The last time I got a shot for the outbreak of some virus, I was sick to my gut.

Conveniently, the schedule came in the middle of my vacation (this is sarcastic, if you can’t tell). Obviously, things I had in store were disrupted. 

To ensure I had a slot, I woke up before 6 am and tried to be in line by 7 in the morning. There were only 1,00 available shots that day. The gates to the vaccination site would only open by 8 am. But knowing how my friends waited in line as early as 3 to 4 am, I might not even get a slot.

Cramming into a room with hundreds of people is terrifying when all you have done over the past year is work from home and report to work. I was not at all eager to be cooped up in some gymnasium where I could possibly contract the virus. I convinced myself that if all the 1,000 slots were filled, I was ready to throw in the towel and wait again. I know more vaccines are being developed. I was ready to stay home until the day I could finally get my shot.

Little did I know that day was today. My sister and I got to the vaccination site and found ourselves only hitting the 300-mark. We were lucky compared to my friends.

This terrified me. I have monthly migraines because I am a woman, and I know how terrible those are even when my body is in tip-top shape. What more when you had little to no sleep the night before because of a sore arm? Or when you are plagued with a fever?

First of all, I tossed and turned almost all night. The position of my arm was pinching me making it hard to breath. My body was so uncomfortable with the fever. 

A pretty sleepless night and a fever-ridden body coincided with the gloomy morning the next day. The sun or absence thereof was pretty much saying the day was not going to be good.

I spent almost the whole morning in bed, only forcing myself up to feed my dog. Although we did have migraine-like headaches, turning your head left to right gave off the feeling like a headache was about to ensue. Luckily, we spent most of our time in our room which probably helped our bodies heal faster.

By that night, the fevers were already pretty much gone. Our arms were just sore from the injection. 

You know the feeling of relief when your body has pretty much recovered?  

My body felt like it was refreshed, but my mind was watching the day tick away. I was halfway through my break. I felt like I was losing time. It took me a few more days to realize that the point of this break was to take my time and not rush through things I wanted to do. My body needed the rest, and that was okay. 

Day 4- Thoughts of cleaning

From the start of this 5-day leave, cleaning my room was on the agenda. 

First, I wanted to reorganize all my university documents and work training documents. Next, I had to de-clutter my overflowing closet of (mostly) hand-me-downs. Third, I wanted to sort through the old toys in our attic and give away those that still look acceptable and properly store those deeply engraved in my memory.

Lastly, I wanted to reorganize all the things on my bed stand, drawers, and bags.

I wanted to head out to buy some mega boxes and organizers. I did not expect the vaccination, and my body did not feel like it wanted to haul boxes and organizers in a cab home.

My arm was still not entirely well, and so I rested again.

In the afternoon, I cleaned the bookcase of my bed stand.

I basically took out all my books. They were just gathering dust and were great hiding spots for spiders and other insects. Instead, I filled it with random old boxes like one full of note pads and random gadget boxes.

Lastly, I fixed my case of masks. Since the pandemic, I began amassing mask after face mask. When the disease spread in the Philippines, I bought cloth masks with a filter sleeve and a respirator. I wanted yo help cut on the pollution of the regular surgical mask and went for cloth masks with re-usable filters instead. 

I realized that I have also been giving my family different kinds of masks since. It’s funny how I am probably causing others to question the number of face masks they own, too. 

Day 5- A cleaning addiction, a bike ride, and a wounded knee

Despite the need to clean, sleep was my escape. It was the end of my freedom. 

I did not do everything I planned. One of the main things I was hoping to achieve was knowing the next step with my job. The year is coming to a close, and I still had nothing concrete up my sleeve.

In my previous post, I mentioned how things seemed to be falling apart. I was really holding on to some hope that in the last quarter of 2021, I would have straightened out my life a little more, if not entirely. But they all fell apart. Slowly companies I was hoping would accept me slipped through my fingers, and this 5-day break was supposed to get a better footing on new paths.

Sadly, the vaccine had other plans. What I had a week of rest and recuperation. I was not mad about that. I probably needed the extra sleep.

My 5-day break was coming to an end. I was well rested but panicking. I did not want to get back to work on Monday. I know I had a weekend to spare, but weekends are jam-packed with practicing (not all the time), writing, bathing my dog, and cleaning.

I felt like I ran out of time, and so I decided to what I can and clean a little more. The drawer on my bedside was still a mess. I slowly cleaned everything out one by one. I also decided to clean out the dust that built up in the keyboard of my laptop. Lastly, I began to write again. Something that helped put me at ease.

You can never plan anything perfectly. You have to be ready to flow with the punches when things do not go your way. You can also learn to enjoy the brighter things ahead.

Writing this now, I have come to realize (at 12:43 in the morning) that writing is part of my future. I do not want my next step to be without it.  At least I got one thing more thing done.