Mental health days

When I was younger, my mom would occasionally let my sister and I have a mental health day--a day off from school to just stay home and play. 

Today I'm taking my own mental health day.

Last week at work was so stressful and busy, with project after project and phone call after phone call.  I have worked already 83 hours in this two week period.  Last week, I even thought, for the first time in my life, I understand why people drink!

Now if you know me, you know that I don't drink. I've never had a drink of alcohol in my life.  I had one period in college when I thought I should start drinking, mostly because I was bored and all my friends were out at house parties.  But I called my mom, who supportively told me it was my choice and that she understood.  My mom had not had a drink for about four years at that point.  After getting her support and love, I hung up and decided not to.

Anyway, last week was hard!  And I felt like it would have been nice to just get a little fuzzy.  To get into a feeling out of my own brain's control and disappear into it.

But I made it through the week.  And yesterday I told my supervisor that I had a meeting today and that I probably would not come in after that because I'd worked a million hours the last two weeks. She laughed and I laughed because obviously I was exaggerating, but it sure felt like a million hours.  And I am so lucky to have a supervisor and work for an agency that believes in me and allows me to be flexible with my hours when I need to.

So after my morning meeting, I started my mental health day.

I've been listening to a Bob Dylan station on Pandora, worked on a story I'm writing, cleaned the whole house, got groceries, got books from the library for a class I'm teaching next week, checked my work and personal emails, wrote this blog post and looked around on Facebook. I'm going to spend my last two hours working on some sewing projects.

The music and the checking of things off my to-do list and the solitude and time to think have been wonderful.  And I feel fuzzy.  Mental health days may just be my own kind of alcohol.