Some days you just need a day.

Yesterday was a hard day. I had nothing left to give. Reserve tank depleted as well.

Empty.

A bad case of the blahs. Perhaps.

Perhaps this dull ache is triggered by the dramatic change in Covid cases in my province. Province-wide shutdown. A year after this whole thing started. A full year. Hard to reconcile, isn’t it? Or perhaps it was my heart breaking, manifested as a mental ache triggered by the sudden change of plans to see my sister because our province closed its border. Perimenopause. The weather. Constant spam phone calls. The common sight of seeing my neighbor out for a cigarette wearing her bathrobe.

Pick one. Any one. Or a combo of the above. It’s all fair game.

Yesterday, I had nothing left. For anybody.

But of course, I spent the better half of the morning trying to convince myself to push through. Get er done. Suck it up.

And then I gave up the one woman fight. I released the pressure valve. And gave in.

I didn’t give up.

But yesterday, I needed to give in.

I needed the world to be quiet. I needed silence – a long lasting echo of complete quiet.

Quiet. Pure silence.

Just a day.

A day to turn off my email, phone, and silent all notifications. Step away from all of it. And just be quiet.

Let calls go to voicemail. Leave email unanswered.

And find Peace in the Pause.

Yesterday, I had nothing left. I dug deep for inspiration. But came up empty.

Instead, I retreated to my centre. Forgot the busyness and let go of a never ending need to produce. To smile. To lift. To serve.

I had nothing left.

I absolutely needed a day.

Like many of you, I work from home. I’m self-employed. The days just seem to roll into each other. Many times I’ll ask my husband to confirm what day it is. It all rolls together. I have eggs every morning for breakfast, so no big distinction between a Tuesday or Saturday. Every day. Eggs.

I digress.

As I fell deeper into the black hole of the blahs, my strength to climb back to the surface, now weakened by my constant need for perspective.

I didn’t need anymore perspective.

You know what I needed?

So simple.

Shockingly, simple.

All I needed was an ‘Out of Office message’

Yup, that’s it.

Yes, that message. The one with generous heaps of dialed-up enthusiasm that we anxiously put on our voicemail and email autoreply just before we shut it all down and joyously leap into a vacation. “Hi, you’ve reached Nicole. I’m sorry I missed you. I’ll be away from the office returning on ‘enter many days away from now with overt joy and enthusiasm as you start to envision the glorious vacation that awaits you on the other end of this last thing on the to-do-list before you say arrivederci world and shut.it.down’.

That message.

Out of Office notifications are golden nuggets earned over time. Little treasures of mental freedom gift wrapped in beautiful bows.

Yes, golden. Little mental health treasures wrapped in bows.

It has been almost 2 years since I put an out-of-office message on my phone or email. Almost 2 years. I’m self-employed, so there is no excuse for this. It’s all on me. But I have not activated an out of office. For reasons, I can’t fully comprehend.

Pandemic. Sure.

Nowhere to go. Perhaps.

Why do I need to take time off when I’m working from home anyway. Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

To be honest, I didn’t even realize this until recently when my husband and I took a 2-night staycation to a beautiful cottage along a river. I still checked email, responded to inquiries, and participated in a 2-hour virtual training, etc.

Pre-pandemic, I NEVER would have done that. If I was taking a vacation, I would have put a very pleasant Out of Office message on all communication and took the leap into mental freedom. And with full knowledge, I earned it. Every single minute of it.

Do you know what happens when we do that?

We. Let. Go.

We release ourselves from the constant burden of having to be ON. All. The. Time.

We Let Go. We are free for a specific amount of time. We tell the world and something magical happens. No one expects anything from us when we have an Out of Office on. No one.

We are free. Free to fill the day however we want. Freedom from the constant and unrelenting need to produce. To respond. To react.

Hooray for self-awareness.

Hip hip hooray for self-care.

Hello Out of Office.

Nice to be re-acquainted. It’s been a while.

I’ve missed you.

With gratitude,