Alyice on July 10th, 2009

Feeling Rejuvenated

Since the beginning of May, I had essentially quit working. Sure, I did the extreme minimal to keep what is left of my writing business afloat—thanks to our current economic situation, but that’s it. I hadn’t sought new freelance writing gigs. I hadn’t marketed my online magazine, The Dabbling Mum. As for my career as an artist, there has been absolutely no marketing, no new projects in the works, no techniques practiced, and no books read. Anything art-related has been limited to playing with photographs in Paint Shop Pro X2 and uploading to Zazzle.

And I have to tell you that it was the best decision I could have made for myself.

I had been burning the lamp at both ends since 2001, adding more and more to my plate with each passing year and never giving myself a break—never fully appreciating what I had accomplished. Never truly seeing what was right in front of me; always seeking to be better, to do better, to reach yet another goal and all the while trying to find some type of balance.

That balance, however, always came with a cost because it was always a balance between work and family. There was never any “me” time and there was definitely never any “down” time. I suppose it didn’t help that I was a control freak who liked to make sure that everyone’s lives were running as smoothly as possible, even if that meant I went without.

Now, I know that not everyone can manage to take two months off from work—and truth-be-told, we really couldn’t afford it either. But after battling a very strenuous year in our personal lives, it was truly essential to my mental well-being—and quite possibly, my physical well-being, too.

I knew that if I was going to move forward with my life and move beyond the depression, I was going to have to just stop and “rest”. So I talked it over with my husband and got his blessing.

It wasn’t a difficult decision considering my business had nearly tanked due to the economy and local jobs are scarce. I had one of two choices: use the time to re-coop or stress myself out trying to save a dying business. It was also no surprise when my husband said, “Do what you need to do to feel better. Do what you need to do to find some peace. We’ll find a way to make it work, we always do.” We’ve always supported each other when life altering changes were necessary for our own, personal well-beings.

At first, doing absolutely nothing was hard. I felt guilty for not working and found myself applying for jobs I knew I’d hate—just to have a steady paycheck again and because that’s all there was in the area—and feeling extreme relief when they filled the spot without ever calling me in for an interview. Then I found myself apologizing every time there wasn’t much left after we paid the bills. Then I found myself downsizing our “junk” and feeling such peace about the process that I soon began restructuring and reorganizing our home, and two months later I’m still at it—husband’s even gotten in on the act of unloading our “junk” via Craigslist, “we buy used” shops, and garage sales.

In the two months that I haven’t worked, I’ve discovered that:

asking for help is not a sign of weakness,
life goes on whether you participate in it or not,
most “urgent” or “do now” tasks on a to do list can wait,
it is vitally important that we have down time to do absolutely nothing,
it’s not the end of the world if everything isn’t put back in its proper place or there’s a load of laundry waiting to be folded,
we waste tons of money buying crap we’ll only use once simply because an ad got the better of us or it looked cool or it filled a void at the time,
expecting too much of ourselves can cause us to be too uptight and no fun to be around, and
knowing success doesn’t always come in dollars and cents is hard to believe when the world keeps cramming that point down our throats.

And I have learned that happiness truly does come from within.

As much as we’d like to believe that happiness comes from the people that surround us, a location, a job, material possessions, or even wealth, it doesn’t. True happiness comes from how we perceive things. It’s not circumstantial. It’s how we choose to live our lives despite the circumstances. It’s about finding the blessings that surround us each and every day and acknowledging them. It’s about appreciating the here and now and not about looking to the future or living in the past. It’s about sharing the load with those that matter most, and not taking on the world alone. It’s about realizing that perfectionism is overrated and success truly is in the “eye of the beholder” and it’s time we stop letting outside forces dictate otherwise.

For the first time in over a year, I feel as though I can breathe again and I have no intention of jumping back into my old way of life. I like the freedom that comes from living without so many high expectations and I hope that in time I will grow to truly love myself again.

Give thanks…

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AlyiceEdrich.com
I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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