The audacity of rest
And how to reclaim rest in everyday life
The week before Christmas, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to wind down for the holiday.
It turns out I need not have been concerned.
Around December 21st, my clients went quiet. By the 23rd, I was completely relaxed. My family and I exercised and ate and slept and played and talked and watched TV and read to our heart’s content during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
I allowed myself to fully and completely rest.
When the alarm went off this morning at 6:30 AM, someone might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water on me.
But the reality is that I’m only working today and tomorrow because I’m going to Italy on Wednesday night.
The trip has been planned for some time, but now the moment has arrived, traveling aka taking another four work days (six days total) off from work and responsibility feels indulgent in a way that makes me embarrassed to tell people I’m going to be away.
Never mind that this trip will fuel my creativity for the rest of the year. Never mind that it’s a chance to connect with my college age son. Never mind that being the kind of person who can go to Italy for a few days at an off time is one of the things I’ve always dreamed of and worked toward.
Instead, I’m just a teensy bit concerned at the audacity of it all.
I just had a vacation. And though I’m working a bit today, my year is really going to start January 11th.
Writing these words reminds me that I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t need permission to rest. I want rest not to be something that only happens on vacation. I want to rest every day of the year.
I don’t quite know how to do that yet. But I have a sense that it involves sloughing off any guilt for traveling so soon after the New Year. And then when I’m back, it will be about:
Stopping work at a certain time every day
Going to bed early
Exercising daily
Lego, cross stitch, puzzles, or any one of the other things that’s just fun for its own sake
Reading with morning coffee rather than scrolling
And other things I haven’t discovered yet!