This time off – how can I say it… was ab-so-fucking-lutely needed. These past few months I’ve been a bit tightly wound – like, tight enough to turn coal into diamonds – so having some time with no obligations has been glorious.

After my last day on Monday, I thought I’d feel more detached. But I felt like I was forgetting something, doing something wrong, moving back and forth trying to dodge an arrow but I wasn’t sure what direction it was coming from. It still felt like I was going to wake up and go to work in the morning, because I had to go in and get my personal stuff that I left (we went out on Friday, and on Monday I was at our warehouse, so I had to go back on Tuesday). I left the office with my bag and thought “there’s still so much for me to do.” and I was antsy about it all the way home. Later that night though, as I was in the middle of deep cleaning the apartment, I realised that I’m done. That I did all I could and now I’m done.

It took about three more days to stop jumping at every notification on my phone, and I’ve had some good news about new work that’s eased the “oh shit what do I do about money” panic, and now that a week has passed, I feel like I’ve finally decompressed. The house is clean, our bills are paid, the laundry is (almost) done, I’ve made (and subsequently eaten) a batch of awesome cookies, I’ve read half a book, got my hair cut, cleaned up the blog a bit, and tried to be a better functioning version of myself. I’d give myself a 80% success rate.

I do feel like I’ve finally exhaled. I didn’t realise how much I’d been holding my breath until I felt comfortable enough to let it all go. I’m still processing all that’s happened this year. I went to a pretty shitty place and I never want it to get that bad again – where I’m too scared to move, too scared to talk.

It’s easy to feel ok right now because I’m on holiday. I’m eating grapes and typing and listening to the hum of our washing machine. The most pressing question of my day is when I’ll take a shower. So I want to spend some time figuring out exactly what went wrong, and when it started to go downhill, so I can make sure it doesn’t go that far again.

Wish me luck…