This article is intended for those who work full-time, (or more, including parenting of course, maintaining relationships, elder-care, and -- now entering our vocabulary -- self-care), and who get 2 weeks of vacation, plus holidays, per year.
Here is the scenario:
You have next week off. You combined a few vacation days with a couple of holiday days to create 9 days off, counting the weekends on both sides. Today is Friday, and relief is in sight. Regardless of your life circumstances, a welcome interruption of the daily routine lays gloriously before you.
Depending on your life circumstances, certain people may come into or go out of your life…
Here is the scenario:
You have next week off. You combined a few vacation days with a couple of holiday days to create 9 days off, counting the weekends on both sides. Today is Friday, and relief is in sight. Regardless of your life circumstances, a welcome interruption of the daily routine lays gloriously before you.
Depending on your life circumstances, certain people may come into or go out of your life…
PERHAPS THERE ARE:
| PEOPLE COMING IN child comes in from former spouse family from afar friends (fill in your own) | PEOPLE GOING OUT child goes to former spouse family nearby co-workers (fill in your own) |
Also depending on your life circumstances, certain factors come in or go out of your life…
| FACTORS COMING IN space recalling what you wish to attend to high hopes sleeping in | FACTORS GOING OUT structure reminders of limitations being at work packing lunches, setting an alarm |
THAT is A LOT of change! “Hurry up and shift gears, from stressed to carefree!” Whether travel is at the beginning, the end, or all of the vacation, there is that one point, maybe a space of a day or two, when the the neurotic day will threaten to hit many of us.
This is the day when we are between… the day we attempt to slam our lives
from drive to park,
without even first decreasing our speed.
from drive to park,
without even first decreasing our speed.
The kids that live with us are on the plane. Company is either gone, or still two days out. We are alone. We are with a spouse. We have plans with friends. We are home. Here come the symptoms of the Neurotic Day.
Let’s review.
Neurotic Day -- the day following four or five days of listening to other voices out in the world, while working to be a productive citizen and contribute to the common good;
Involves self-doubt, fatigue, lack of direction;
Looks like laziness, wandering around;
Feels like discontentment, fear, dissatisfaction, discouragement
Last month, the Neurotic Day within a weekend was the focus. In this segment, the Neurotic Day is within a vacation when combined with a holiday. This calls for additional symptoms, which may include:
Missing the child from whom you looked forward to being temporarily relieved;
Realizing the disappointment that maybe there isn’t enough time to start and complete the things you couldn’t wait to get to “during vacation;”
Learning someone else already had an agenda for you
A commonly quoted truth is, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” We don’t know what to do with ourselves. And oh yeah, we may look around and notice our living environment needs all kinds of attention. We can hear the painful sound of gears grinding. We hurk and jerk, then either stop or keep grinding. Meanwhile we ask ourselves, by the way, “Can’t you please hurry up and relax? Why can’t you be happy?” We may accuse ourselves critically with statements like, “You are ruining your vacation!” Or, “If you are going to be miserable, you might as well be at work, getting PAID.”
How will you come out of the hurking and jerking? Will your engine die? Will you disregard the transmission grinding until you find a gear, ANY gear, that will take you out of this awful place? Or did you plan for this?
Can you recall that your foot must come off of the accelerator in order to sequentially downshift?
Let’s review.
Neurotic Day -- the day following four or five days of listening to other voices out in the world, while working to be a productive citizen and contribute to the common good;
Involves self-doubt, fatigue, lack of direction;
Looks like laziness, wandering around;
Feels like discontentment, fear, dissatisfaction, discouragement
Last month, the Neurotic Day within a weekend was the focus. In this segment, the Neurotic Day is within a vacation when combined with a holiday. This calls for additional symptoms, which may include:
Missing the child from whom you looked forward to being temporarily relieved;
Realizing the disappointment that maybe there isn’t enough time to start and complete the things you couldn’t wait to get to “during vacation;”
Learning someone else already had an agenda for you
A commonly quoted truth is, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” We don’t know what to do with ourselves. And oh yeah, we may look around and notice our living environment needs all kinds of attention. We can hear the painful sound of gears grinding. We hurk and jerk, then either stop or keep grinding. Meanwhile we ask ourselves, by the way, “Can’t you please hurry up and relax? Why can’t you be happy?” We may accuse ourselves critically with statements like, “You are ruining your vacation!” Or, “If you are going to be miserable, you might as well be at work, getting PAID.”
How will you come out of the hurking and jerking? Will your engine die? Will you disregard the transmission grinding until you find a gear, ANY gear, that will take you out of this awful place? Or did you plan for this?
Can you recall that your foot must come off of the accelerator in order to sequentially downshift?
THIS
TAKES
TIME
...if we aren’t going to turn to chemicals for assistance!
TAKES
TIME
...if we aren’t going to turn to chemicals for assistance!
Guess what. The Neurotic Day has now chosen its rightful place. To fight it means further damaging expensive parts: Our self esteem, our peace of mind, our relationships. Critically questioning what is wrong with us that we can’t be happy is one level of damage. Pressuring ourselves to hurry up and relax is an additional level of damage.
OF COURSE you are questioning!
Ahhh, that is self-talk that feels different.
Of course you don’t know what to do with yourself. You have been working! And, you have been giving to that child, and that one. And to that relationship. And maybe to aging parents too.
Sit down. Take a breath. Let the questions come. The reminders, disappointing as they may be, come to say that this time is limited, and so you too have human limitations and might not get the fence stained, or the photos framed.
Are you looking forward to going back to work yet?!
Nah, this is just the Neurotic day… a necessary part of adjusting to so many changes at once. The kinder we can be to ourselves, the fewer hours this has to take. This is your chance to cry while missing a loved one, to put your projects back into a stack, and sigh at the chores coming into view…
OF COURSE you are questioning!
Ahhh, that is self-talk that feels different.
Of course you don’t know what to do with yourself. You have been working! And, you have been giving to that child, and that one. And to that relationship. And maybe to aging parents too.
Sit down. Take a breath. Let the questions come. The reminders, disappointing as they may be, come to say that this time is limited, and so you too have human limitations and might not get the fence stained, or the photos framed.
Are you looking forward to going back to work yet?!
Nah, this is just the Neurotic day… a necessary part of adjusting to so many changes at once. The kinder we can be to ourselves, the fewer hours this has to take. This is your chance to cry while missing a loved one, to put your projects back into a stack, and sigh at the chores coming into view…
and allow all of it,
without judgment.
without judgment.
You are not wasting your time. You are decelerating. Soon enough, the time to get-back-in-gear will arrive…
until then,
you are
coming
to
a
stop.
you are
coming
to
a
stop.
You are showing up for unstructured time, and allowing yourself to shift, to coast into enjoying the vacation you were so looking forward to.
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