Tag: break

It’s Okay To Pause

Marinelle CabilloLeave a comment

One thing that I’m constantly working on is my schedule. I’m always trying to carve out the right time to write, to do or watch things I enjoy, and to have some leisure time. It came to a point where I was so frustrated with myself because I would hold off all of my writing until the weekend. I would be left typing my ass off in the wee hours of Sunday night into early Monday morning. I would sleep like shit leading into Mondays because the start of the work week, but also because the stress of not being done with my post. It would keep me tossing and turning the whole night. I’d wake up early in the morning, about an hour before I had to get ready for work, and type my ass off until it was time to start my day. My coworkers know that once it hits 5 PM on Mondays, it’s time to dip. I switch from my work laptop to my personal laptop by 5:01 PM, trying to throw something low effort into the air fryer for dinner.

I was tired of that shit. Finishing everything entirely under pressure worked in high school and my college days, but this shit wasn’t sliding in my late 20’s anymore. I was tired. Tired in every possible fucking way – tired of stressing myself out, tired of scrambling for time, tired of being disappointed in myself that I didn’t put in my all, tired of not getting my shit together, and literally physically and mentally tired. I knew I had to make the change and effort to come up with a routine where I wouldn’t be in such a disarray time after time. I still procrastinate and still stress about it on Sunday and Monday, but it has gotten a lot better, and I give myself a head start throughout the week.

A switch went off in me earlier this year, I’ve made it a routine to write a couple of paragraphs daily Monday – Friday, Saturdays being my rest days, and Sundays were writing days as well. After reading a couple chapters of Atomic Habits by James Clear, I knew to make a new habit, I had to be consistent. So I didn’t want to break the momentum. I would think to myself “throw future Marinelle a bone.” Meaning, even if I’m not feeling like writing, writing one paragraph rather than nothing will still help me in the long run.

Doing something just twice is the start of a new habit, so I knew that breaking my good habit would be the start of a bad habit. So I tried my best to avoid that at all costs. “What would Marinelle with good habits want me to do?” “This will be the start of a bad habit.” “Future Monday Marinelle will thank you.” All these justifications would come up every time I even thought of skipping a day. I didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to fail myself or put more added stress on future me. Why stress if I could work on a post little by little? Why stress myself out if I could avoid that feeling all together?

I have this way of thinking in other areas of my life. Since the pandemic, I found myself not as active as I once was. My role at work and the fact that my morning and night commute was 100% cut out, left me the least active I have ever been in my life. Especially since we stopped going to indoor gyms consistently since the pandemic hit. I wanted future Marinelle to be proud of the decisions that I was choosing to make in the present. I have these burst moments where I decide to take immediate action on things – being active is a consistent reoccurring one.

I decided to try to incorporate time for me to focus on my health daily to find that balance. Like I’ve said many times in many blog posts, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to do everything you want to do. I find it very difficult to balance out everything I want to do, and in the end, one or two things end up getting neglected, and I eventually drop the ball. But my goal was to find ways to avoid dropping the ball so often, or at the very least, know how to pick the ball up quicker once it falls.

I came up with many different routines to figure out the best time for me to write. I tried to fit it in during my break, after dinner and a shower, during early mornings, you name it. Every time I found something that “worked” I would realize there’s other things that need my attention as well, so I’d move it around. This particular instance though, it was me focusing on trying to be more active. So I thought I found the perfect equation to my day – wake up at 6 AM to write, start work at 8, walk for an hour on my break, and wind down after 5 PM. And for some time, it worked.

However, I’m a sleepy girl. I usually spend my 1 hour break sleeping, since I don’t drink coffee or tea for energy. I’m constantly running on my body’s natural energy, which is close to non-existent. With waking up so early in the morning and powering on through the rest of my day, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open at 8 PM. Then what needed my attention was quality time and rest. For about 9 months plus, I was consistently writing Monday through Friday without fail, proud that I was building a new habit and actually keeping up with it. But switching my writing to the morning quickly had me feeling burnt out.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I took a trip to SoCal in October. I was so tired from the drive and traveling, that when Monday came around, I purposely turned off my writing alarm and went back to sleep. “It’s okay, it’s just one day.” But it happened the day after that, and then the day after that, and then the day after that, for 2 weeks. Oh no. A new habit. And this time, it wasn’t a good habit. I was disappointed in myself. For a little over 2 weeks, I went back to my old habit from almost a year ago – saving my writing for the last minute days before.

But the thing was, I knew I was disappointing myself, but I didn’t care. I thought I would care more that I was breaking a good habit and ending my “streak.” And for the record, I’m super anal about keeping streaks going and “throwing myself a bone.” I was bummed out that I ended my good habit, but at the same time, I was going easy on myself. What made this time different from the rest? It was the fact that I knew I was putting in hard work up until that point. It would’ve been a different story if I was half-assing it the whole time.

The idea of having to be productive at all times, even when you’re continuing to push yourself to your limit, knowing you’re about to hit a wall, has detrimental effects. Working yourself until you’re completely burnt out and out of gas is not sustainable. There’s a difference between being lazy and not pushing yourself versus working hard and knowing that you need a break. It’s okay to pause whatever task or dream that’s taking up a lot of your time. Pausing doesn’t mean you’ve given up, it just means you need time to recharge so you can work efficiently.

I was going hard for so long that I knew I was bound to feel burnt out eventually. I was completely ignoring the part of me that knew I needed a break. When I fell off my routine for a little over 2 weeks, I didn’t stop writing all together, I just found other ways to go easy on myself when I was mentally fatigued. I allowed myself to be lazy, to step away, and write last minute like I used to. Technically, I was still “getting it done” in the public’s eyes, just not how I would want it to be.

You’re not a failure if you’re not being productive 24/7. That’s a lie used to guilt trip us to work until we mentally crash. To avoid consistent burnout, I have to listen to that part of me that is asking for that break. Sometimes a pause is much needed, especially if you’re doing creative work. I knew to go easy on myself because the plan was never to just stop, it was to pause and get back on it when I was ready. I gave myself a timeline on when I was going to get back on a routine, that way I could enjoy my downtime without guilt. This time around, it took a little over 2 weeks. The goal is to take consistent pauses to avoid the mental burnout.

Pause if you need to.

Vacation: Finding My Balance Again

Marinelle Cabillo

This is the time of the year I’ve been anticipating for so long. The perks of working at a preschool is staying on the “school” schedule, something I was not ready to let go of after I graduated. These periods of paid vacation give me time to unwind, think, get in touch with myself again, and hopefully recharge and get re-inspired.

The last couple of months, but more so the last couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling like I was dragging myself to the finish line. That finish line being this break. I was running out of gas, and faster than usual. I feel like I always get like that when I’m anticipating a long break/vacation. But this one felt different. Last year, I dragged myself to the finish line and had graduation to celebrate at the end of it all. It was the most relieving feeling ever. Now, I dragged myself to the finish line of winter break, this time, not much to celebrate.

Everytime my work has an extended amount of time off, I try to do things that I know I enjoy and things I never have time for. This morning, Justine and I hit the gym at 8 am. We used to go 2-3 times a week at 6 am, before my hours increased to fulltime. Now, I wake up at 5 am every weekday for work. It felt good to have an outlet to relieve some stress. And it also felt good to not have to rush to do something else right after.

I’ve been waiting for this break for so long because the best plans for me is no plans at all. I’ve been day dreaming of laying down at home watching TV, nowhere to go, no actual plan, in my pajamas most likely asleep. I’m constantly doing something everyday, and I just want a break. A break from adulting. And I definitely will have a couple days like that during these 2 weeks off! But I realized, this is the time to act and do.

During my summer break at work, where I got 2 consecutive weeks off, I did the whole “no plans, multiple days to yourself” thing for a little too long. I started to get so bored that I knew I’d regret not doing anything once work started up again. So I plan to do this break a little different.

I want to workout as many days as I can, when I want to, and if I want to. I want to catch up on shows that I always end up falling asleep to because of how tired I am at the end of a workday. I want to read the books I’ve put off to the side, and get re-inspired by feminist authors. I want to continue reading the Avatar the Last Airbender comic books that I have, because damn these comics answer a lot of questions I have! One of these comic books revealed the story of Zuko’s mom, and I was truly shook. Avatar is my obsession. I try to watch it from beginning to end every other year to feel more spiritual and woke. I’m not even kidding. To some it sounds ridiculous, but Avatar the Last Airbender is so deep, and holds a special place in my heart. Avatar faithful. I’ve been due for another showing from beginning to end, but my DVD player has been weird, it plays the DVD and then 5 minutes into any episode it blows out the speakers. The weirdest thing. So I haven’t been able to watch my Avatar for a minute. Christian tried to fix this problem by getting the whole series on Blu Ray, but he took the ps4 player with him while he visits SoCal during the break, so I’m still Avatar-less.

Anyways, I always try to get ahead of the game during these breaks and write a couple stories, so I’m not stressed out when Sunday/Monday comes around. I have 3-4 stories I have in the works right now, of people that want to share their stories. Right now I’m just doing all the interviewing and getting those details. I imagine this is what being a fulltime journalist will feel like. Except it’s kind’ve hard when I work 40 hours a week, also trying to maintain a social life, but keep my true passions in check all at the same time.

Keeping up this blog is basically like assigning yourself a final paper due every Monday. I’ve been out of school for a year, but I knew I would never be done with deadlines if I want to pursue a career as a writer / journalist. So I started assigning Mondays as my forever deadline, until I make it, and then you’ll catch me in a magazine or news columns. Breaks like this from my actual 8-5 job is what gives me that break to think creatively again. Reconnecting with myself is an important thing.

I thought I knew the definition of “self-care” when I was in college. Don’t get me wrong though, college was not easy. There were many times where I was literally mentally breaking down, and had to take a break. That’s where “self-care/treat yo-self” came into play for me. This would be in the form of a nap, face mask, literally walking away from the assignment, hanging out with friends, etc. But the thing with college was, once the final was turned in, once the presentation was over, once the whole ass class was over, there was relief. This adulting life…. this is different.

I think about this often and ususally think, “first world problems.” Because it’s true. I’m grateful that I wake up every morning and have a job to go to. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to go to school and finish up a degree. I’m hopeful that there is a writing job out there that I will feel fulfilled. But I realized since I got out of school, that I relied so much on my next “break,” my next “vacation” period that would get me through. “Just X amount of days until ____ vacation,” is what would get me through in school and in work. But I realized, once I get out of the teaching field, I’m not going to have any long “break” to look forward to. And then what?

My mental health is so focused on break / vacation, that I really don’t know how I’ll transition to working a writing job not on the “school holiday” schedule. Break is where I recharge myself and give myself a break to relax. When I’m full blown adulting, I won’t have these 2 weeks to fall back on.

And it makes me wonder, how do people recharge? I already know that for me, it’s so easy to lose track of the things I love and enjoy doing because life and priorities get in the way. I have to work 8-5 to make money, I have to do xyz in order to get to xyz point. And in that routine, sometimes I lose track of what I really want. I get trapped in the labyrinth of adulting. But my break/vacation is what brings me back. I get the time to do things that I can’t regularly do when I work 40 hours a week. And it made me realize that that’s how some people get lost in their journey. They kind’ve get side tracked with doing adult grown person shit, and in doing so, lose sight of the end goal. Especially since it is so hard to transition from 1 career to the next. And I feel like that’s how some people get trapped into not doing what they really want, or not following their dreams.

This crossed my mind as I started planning my 2 week break. Since I’m fortunate to have these 2 weeks off, I plan to use it to my advantage, since I know I won’t always have this opportunity to unwind and relax. I also want to take this time to really hangout with friends. With life and everyone’s schedules, it’s so easy to just fall off for a couple of weeks. Everyone is in different stages of their lives, and for me and my friends, we like to catch up and talk about it, ususally over food.

Sadly, I’m kind’ve passed the point in my life where my friends and I can all just say “hey let’s all meet up at ____’s house,” on a whim. But I’ll gladly take these 2 weeks to remember what it’s like to not have any responsibility, to fall inlove again with the things that I have put to the side, and remember who I am.