Day Five - Schoolwork, Laundry and Being in My Feelings
Okay day five! It kicked off with a lot of weekly planning, organizing and e-mail writing. It was a busy morning and my tea helped me to keep going! I had an interesting call that inspired me to negotiate higher pay for a job I am taking on. I managed to get my pay $2 higher, it was still lower than what I asked for and what I believe to be fair considering the living wage where I live, but it will make a huge difference in my monthly pay.
So after all the studying and planning I was off to see Steve! Steve is a beautiful Goldendoodle that I walk every Tuesday and even though he is always disappointed that I’m not one of his owners, I really enjoy our walks. It’s really good for getting me out of the house and getting some fresh air and sunlight. He only posed so well for this photo because he thought I might have a treat in my hand. We strolled the neighborhood and looked at all the houses that have decorated for Christmas and it was definitely an outing I needed.
I ran a couple errands then I was off to work - I don’t normally work Tuesdays but I went in to do some make-up lessons. It had lots of fun with my students playing and singing Christmas songs. One of my students got a real kick out of “Nuttin’ For Christmas”.
Back home I was feeling a little bit off. Perhaps a little bit of that inevitable loneliness that sometimes comes up around this time of year for me mixed with some stress and some nerves about upcoming performance. I am very thankful for friends who are my safe space to get my feelings out of my head and put them somewhere. Even though they couldn’t magically make me feel better, it helped to acknowledge and talk through some of what I was feeling. After a little cry, I moved along and did my laundry, did some schoolwork and then ended the night with a little gaming. I once again needed to battle feelings of guilt for not being “productive” but I tried to remind myself that carving out time to do things I enjoy is a part of my treatment. If you’ve ever experienced depression, you know that this can be really hard, and it’s one of the first things we sacrifice when we strive for perfection. We feel like we don’t deserve to be rewarded if we haven’t completed out daily checklists perfectly. But taking that time for ourselves whether it’s for a game, to read a book, watch a movie, take a bath….help us to continue our productivity without running ourselves into the ground.
So I hope that you can carve out some time today to do something for yourselves. I’d love to know what it is in the comments!
Some fun stuff happening tomorrow too.
-B