Hello blog world, let me start by apologizing for not posting for the past 2 weeks, I am been BEYOND busy (hints the name of this week’s post). As I was about to start writing this week, I thought about making this a continuation from the last post of slowing down. But, thought we needed a little bit of a different ~vibe~, so let’s talk about learning to take breaks.

As a college student in a pandemically driven world, online school has been kicking my butt. And when I say kicking my butt, I mean I sit at my computer almost 14 hours a day and still do not seem to get everything accomplished I need to. Weekends? Haven’t heard of those since the semester began. There seems to never be a time to stop and take a break. I was talking to my mom the other day telling her how I was trying to catch up on my lack of sleep, and she made the point to remind me that you can’t get sleep back, you just get more the next day after you don’t get enough. And of course, we get no spring break this year, so we are grinding nonstop for 4 months straight.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands, I knew I had been working my booty off nonstop since fall semester. Considering I took a winter class and got 5 days to breathe before spring semester began, I knew it was time for a little vacay. After not much planning, my cousin, friend, and I hopped in the car and drove down to meet my cousin’s boyfriend in New Orleans for a quick 3 day weekend trip. We made the most of our time away from school, lots of daiquiris, a day in the French Quarter, and tons of different food. And the best part is, I didn’t open my computer once the whole weekend. I was completely disconnected from the college realm just for a few days, and man it was a much needed break.

It is not selfish to need a break and it is not selfish to give yourself a break. School is overwhelming, work is overwhelming, whatever you do can be overwhelming. There is this stigma around slowing down, like what I talked about in my previous post. We live in a society where needing a break is seen as a weakness. But we will burnout on life as a whole if we don’t slow down and give ourselves the breaks we deserve. Breaks don’t have to be anything extravagant. A break could look like watching Netflix while you eat dinner, going on an ice-cream run, or just talking to your roommate for a few minutes to give your eyes a break from the computer screen. 

It is so easy to just keep going, to just finish the project and then you’ll go to bed or to just watch one more lecture and then you’ll eat lunch. Humans were not created to run on an empty battery, we need rest, we need breaks. This is your sign to give yourself a break. Seriously, put your phone down and go take a walk or eat a snack. I know I personally don’t feed myself as much as I should, so this is a sign for me just as much as it is for you. 

So, to the girl who deserves a break, I know you probably think you don’t, BUT YOU DO!! Please slow down. Trust me, I am the first to say there is not enough time in the day to do more than half the things I want to do. But the thing is there is always going to be too much on your to-do list to accomplish in one day. So be intentional about what you do, take time to see friends, eat, and sleep. You deserve to take a breather and just take some time off. Life moves too quickly anyway, so take some time for yourself and take the break you so deserve.