The Break

Contrary to most things called a break, this has nothing to do with my relationship. Just wanted to clear that up considering I’m currently on the plane from Athens to Lisbon for the second leg in our honeymoon. But the main reason why I’m calling this one The Break is due to reality; sitting on a beach in Santorini for ten days can really make you feel like you’re on a break from reality. It was only in the last few days leading up to this flight that I started thinking about life back home. Missing parts of it, but also coming to many realizations. Thoughts would cross my mind that I had completely forgot about from a few months ago and realizing that it all added up to a bigger picture. 

Sometimes when you’re in it, day-in, day-out, it’s really hard to take a step back and see what a vicious cycle your daily routine is. Taking a break can help highlight what’s working and what’s not. One of the big realizations that I had was, as much as I learned how to navigate or coast through the things I didn’t like about work, they were impacting my personal relationships. Mainly the one I have with Niall but also friendships. At work, I was always being pushed to the limit, and not getting credit for the hard work I was doing and being let down from any small mistakes or edits. Which led me to be completely upset if any feedback was given to me about other things in life. I’ll share an example, same one I told Niall about while sitting on the beach and probably sipping a drink. About a month or so before being let go, my sister was coming over for dinner on a Tuesday night and she was going to stay over and leave early the next morning. When I have people over, I like to really make them feel at home. I put out all the fancy things, like wine you can’t buy in the local store, charcuterie with local jams and gluten free crackers, and I clean the whole house from top to bottom basically. So this Tuesday afternoon I was on some work calls, some more important than others, but decided to go into the kitchen and start prepping some food for dinner whilst camera off and listening into the not-so-important work calls. I’m not about to get into the whole debate of work from home etiquette in terms of cameras being on or off, or when to mute yourself etc. but let’s just say everyone else on the call had their camera on. Whatever — I had a long to-do list of shit and probably looked like garbage anyway, look at my gmail headshot instead. I was genuinely listening and just chopping potatoes instead of doing some other work-related multi-tasking but my manager stopped every so often as if I wasn’t on the call to confirm if I understood or had any comments. To which I would unmute myself and be like “yup, all sounds good — super exciting stuff,” without an inch of sarcasm at the time. 

My sister was mainly making this trip because I leant her a bed for when she decided to go back to school and complete her masters. Her masters had just finished and she was moving back to Montreal to have a homebase for a while but she had no idea where her future fulltime job would land her. But I really needed the bed back in order to host all the Irish friends and family expected in six weeks so it was a major check off the to-do list in the grand scheme of things. So this random Tuesday, where we would normally be just playing a game of friendly soccer after work was basically a mad dash, final big thing on the wedding to do list, while working, and prepping and I could not finish up and shower and pour a glass of wine soon enough. 

I know what you’re thinking, sounds like a recipe for a break already. But basically the next day was garbage day, I say that literally and also referring to the hangover I had on a Wednesday. I had cleaned up before my sister arrived the night before and rapidly put recycling all over the place and not in Niall’s super organized sorted bins. When he put the recycling out in the morning he was like “well that took me extra long because I had to resort everything” and me, so damn tired and drained from juggling work, but also constantly dealing with condescending actions about things I needed to either fix or work on at work, led me to be completely upset for the entire day and basically just shut down until Niall would cough up an apology. 

But that’s kind of absurd, especially when he didn’t even realize that I was still mad at the end of the day. All just because of recycling, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, it could have been anything else. So that’s what the six next weeks felt like at work, everything was the tip of the iceberg and after letting so many things go, it became harder and harder to coast along and accept things. This is not the way work should be. You should be able to coast and not feel like you need to speak up about every little detail. You should be able to feel like you’re putting in great work and not feel like it’s hard to know whether what you’re doing is valuable or not. You should know exactly how you’re doing and how your relationships are doing, if not everyday, at least once a week. So that was slipping, and after weeks now of being unemployed I can confidently say, it is not my fault. 

But I needed a break. Which was around the corner. I had it scheduled as soon as our vacation for the year renewed, so like 8-9 months ago. I was ready for a break and just needed to coast to get there. 

And if there’s anything you should know about me it’s that I hate when my plans get derailed. 

But the other thing that this break has taught me so far other then that taking a break, not just a single mental health day as I mentioned in my previous post, but a real break from reality, is that of course, life throws you curve balls. But most importantly, you can’t take those curve balls personally. They’re not personal attacks, they’re not someone else trying to control your life; you’re in control of it. You get to say what your next move is. You get to decide where you want to go next. You can cry, you can be angry, you can call your mom, you can call your best friend. Whatever you need to do, or want to do, you can do it. And no one can change that ever. 

So getting let go from a job does not define you. 

Read that again, please. 

Your employment status does not define you. 

Your financial income does not define you as a good or bad person. 

Sure, it defines your tax bracket. But it doesn’t indicate what choices you make in life. Some people fall into money out of sheer luck, others out of working 80 hours a week, having two jobs and hustling super hard. But all I am saying is basically the life you live is up to you, and no one else to decide.

Therefore, work is not and should not, define your life. 

It’s part of it; but it’s not all you are.  

And if you feel like it’s suffocating you, like it’s taking over parts of your life that you should normally have complete control over, consider taking a well deserved break. Surfing had been on my bucket list for probably 10+ years, probably wouldn't have been able to try it without this well deserved break. Whats on your break-bucket list?

🏄🏼‍♀️