Do I need a break? I say that with a little smile on my face. Honey, this is my break. If this question had come up exactly one year ago, the list of what I needed a break from would have been long. I needed a break from grad school–the classes every week, the short-term assignments, the long-term-won’t-get-your-administration-license-without-it projects, the comprehensive-won’t-graduate-if-you-don’t-pass exam. So…much…work! So…much…to…do! I needed a break from my job as principal. The job that saw the entire success of a little, Catholic school resting on my shoulders. I needed a break from my mentor. The woman who needed a lesson on what it means to be an effective mentor. Her definition and mine were very different. The difference being, she didn’t care if anybody disagreed with her, least of all me. All of that led to me needing a break from the anxiety. All of that was stress and all of that brought crippling anxiety.
That was a year ago.
Right now? This is my break from all of that. My permanent break. Sure I don’t like working until 5:00 because I feel like I have more things I want to do at home. But I’m working in a place where the stress ends at 5:00 and there is very little to no anxiety. What anxiety I do feel is residual from my old job, triggered by something that reminds me of the old place. As my current mentor told me today, she puts her 40 hours in and when she leaves for the day or the weekend, everything else can wait until Monday.
I’m grateful that as I think about other things that I might like a break from, I can’t think of any. Nothing else that I don’t like doing really makes me feel like I need a break from it. Washing the dishes because we don’t have a dishwasher? Nah. There’s a window above the kitchen sink and I enjoy watching the birds in the bird bath as I’m washing. I even enjoy listening to music very loudly while I wash. The laundry? I’m good. When I’m folding clothes I can do it while sitting on the couch watching a movie.
This is the break I needed last year. I’m good for now, but thanks for asking.
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