Earning the Right to Relax
Half a four-cheese pizza, a few chicken nuggets, a bottle of red. A few days off work and still an hour of work, then home automation projects. Turns out the food wasn't the thing worth looking at.
Tonight was a fuck-it evening. Half a four-cheese pizza, a few of those southern-fried chicken nugget dohdads, a bottle of red. I’ve got a few days off, so I decided I couldn’t be bothered negotiating with myself over every mouthful.
I’m not losing sleep over the food. Weeks of this have changed what “enough” looks like for me — a small fish and chips satisfies me now, I leave food behind without thinking about it. One evening doesn’t undo that.
The bit worth looking at properly is the few days off themselves. I booked time away from work, and still did an hour of it. Then went straight into programming home automation.
Technically not working. Mentally, still on duty.
Except that’s not quite right either, because the home automation stuff isn’t a chore — it’s mine, I choose it, I decide when it’s done or whether to abandon it halfway through. Work doesn’t work like that. Even the bits I enjoy come with responsibility attached, and the sense that someone might need something from me.
So I take time off, and my brain goes looking for another project anyway. And maybe that’s where the pizza and the red wine actually come in — not as a reward for a day well spent, but as the thing that finally gets to say, right, that’s enough for today.
I don’t think the answer is sitting on the sofa doing nothing because that’s apparently what a holiday is for. I like the projects. I’d be lying if I said I wanted to stop doing things.
What I’m less sure about is whether I ever get to the end of a day and feel like I’ve actually finished, rather than just run out of hours to carry on in. Those aren’t the same feeling, and I suspect I’ve been settling for the second one without noticing.
Tonight’s dinner was never really the question. The question is whether I can give myself permission to enjoy a few days off without needing to earn the right to relax first.