Once again, hallo-weekend has arrived, am I excited, well, yeah, duh. At the same time, I’m dreading it, not because of the festivities the weekend itself brings but because we are reaching a painful point in the semester.
The point where I remember college isn’t supposed to be a cakewalk, and every minute is humbling. Professors seem to cancel class less often, and work is piling on at an alarming rate. The time I start questioning why I voluntarily do this to myself.
I’m miserable 24/7 because the average temperature indicates I need a winter jacket, and every day is a puzzle trying to figure out what can fit in my day and what gets thrown out the window.
The reality is, once all the fun of hallo-weekend has left us, we are left with the hallo-slump.
It’s brutal; I have no other words to describe what my foreseeable future looks like. I wish I could say I had some super positive bright side to look up to, but I don’t.
The thing that I think sucks the most about it is that even the things you are looking forward to start to feel like a chore.
I wish I knew some magical, clear-cut way to combat the dreadful effects of the hallo-slump, but I have not a clue.
My philosophy? Screw self-care and all that wellness jazz; I’m surviving, just that, nothing more, nothing less, and that’s okay with me.
Is living in a survival mode the healthiest option? Probably not, but it’s how I’m going to push through the slump, and that’s literally all that matters.
Once my classes slow down and I have a free day, then I’ll try out some of that self-care crap. But for right now, I’m going to just focus on powering through.
Survival mode, for me, sometimes means I’m on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. Other times, I am sobbing in the corner of the library. But mostly, it’s just accepting that, right now, I need to sacrifice some things I typically wouldn’t, while prioritizing things I don’t want to.
Survival mode means eating dinner in the library instead of with friends, staying up late to finish papers even when I have an early class, or skipping my workout to have an extra hour to get other stuff done.
Does it lowkey suck to not always prioritize what makes me feel the best? Yeah, but I got to do what I got to do.
For me, anyway, surviving turns into thriving, and I’ll take that.
Cheers to hallo-weekend, may the hallo-slump begin.