My best friend and I keep getting nostalgic over the times we used to have fun. We can’t figure out when we started to take everything so seriously, devoting every waking moment to schoolwork, job applications, and grad school. We knew that it came with the territory, that we’re seniors graduating a whole year early so everything feels like it has been sprung upon us. We just didn’t realize it would be this intense.
Every day I get a message from a friend wanting to hang out, wanting to Facetime, wanting to plan a trip or just catch up. I appreciate it; Believe me, I feel so bad that I continually put them off. I’ve just completely lost sight of the bigger picture. Of the fact that taking a couple hours off to enjoy the people around me is not going to ruin my life. I’m not going to fail out of college or never get hired just because I got lunch with a friend, or because I went up North for a weekend. It’s hard to let go of the pressure. It feels like I can’t take my foot off the pedal for even a little bit, because the engine is crazy tired and the tank is dangerously low on gas.
I’m running on empty, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since the summer, and my diet is nonexistent. I’ve canceled two spinning classes for advising appointments and group project meetings, and it is now dawning on me that none of it is worth it. I’m unhappy and unhealthy – the very things I promised I’d never let happen to myself again because I know just how bad it can get.
So now I’m trying to regain perspective. I’m not letting go of my responsibilities, but I’m going to (somehow) make time for myself. I signed up for a spinning class tomorrow, even though I have a billion assignments due and I’m exhausted. I need to do something for me, something that’s going to make me feel better about myself and give me the much-needed motivation to get through the week. I’m going to reserve 45 minutes completely to myself and out of my head. I’m giving myself the break I so desperately need.
It’s hard to take a step back and see the bigger picture for what it is. Everyone around me seems unbothered as if they’re handling their busy lives with ease. But when you hear their own anxieties and exhaustion, it soon becomes clear that we’re in a maize-and-blue pressure cooker. We’re all leaders and best, but it takes an incredible amount of hard work and determination to get there. Sometimes, the most important thing is not staying up until 3 in the morning applying to jobs. Sometimes, it’s doing something purely because it makes you happy and nothing else.
It’s hard to prioritize taking a break, but we need to make time for the things that we’ll want to remember. We need to start saying yes more, and I don’t mean to things we think we “should” do. Ultimately, when I look back at my time here I don’t want it to be defined by the stress and exhaustion I’ve felt this semester, so it’s up to me to change that.