My Year of Rest and Relaxation – A personal experience

I read this book last month and thoroughly enjoyed it, but didn’t expect it to be particularly relatable. The unnamed protagonist—who escalates in drugging herself into a continual stupor in an attempt to sleep through an entire year—is certainly not written to be a likable person in any way. Pitiable maybe, especially when you see those few glimmers of humanity in her, only able to be brought out by being drugged to the brink of unconsciousness. Like I said, I loved the book, but part of me was wondering “What exactly is the takeaway here?”

Well…I woke up this morning, March 1st, and got my shit together, exactly like I had planned. I took my meds and cleansed my face for the first time in weeks, brushed my teeth for the full three minutes instead of speed running through it, and even took the time to floss. Sat down and dusted off my planner, wrote a (meant to be) daily journal entry. Did the exercises for my very injured back that I should have been doing this whole time.

For the past several weeks I had written off all my good habits. I was eating too much, spending too much money, wasn’t taking care of myself, and was just *waiting* for the month to turn over, as if I needed that arbitrary date to come before I could have a reset. And all during February, I more or less acted like I couldn’t possibly have my shit together because it wasn’t March yet. It was so obvious reading that book what a bad idea the protagonist had, and yet I turned around and had my own little “month of rest and relaxation” without realizing it.

When I’m on track and doing what I need to do, it’s so energizing. I wonder how I could have ever spent my time wallowing, knowing exactly how unfulfilling and counterproductive it was. But when I’m in wallow mode, it feels like there’s hardly any other way. I wonder if that’s a common thing—to get yourself into a rut and decide on an arbitrary and distant point in the future where it will all get better, instead of just doing whatever you can in the moment to snap yourself out of it. I might re-read the book and see if I can “let it in” a little more, not looking down from my high horse.

by BlackberryPoinsetta