New Year, New Stack 🤓

New Year! Fuck! Wow! 

I spent the week leading up to the new year resting a ridiculous amount, and the rest of the time working on my personal projects. It was really nice! I want to do more of that. It seemed like when I gave myself time to rest, it opened up a huge well of exhaustion in me—I slept until 2 PM some days! 

For the last three months of 2021, I made it a priority to write submittable material and get it out there. I made this Substack too, and started being more of a person on Twitter! I've got two publications and counting lined up for 2022 already, and I'm going to be in at least four shows this year. That's not even a fraction of everything I want to do, either!

It felt so luxurious to not hold myself as accountable as usual this week. I have so much I want to do, and so little time—but I want to rest. And what will even make me feel rested, anyway? 

Some things that make me feel recharged, in no particular order:

• walks. getting outside, and exercise in general, always clears my head.

• having at least a night a week where I don't do anything social. bonus points if it's a weekend day, or if I go to a yoga class right after work and then hang out in my apartment eating fruit and playing video games the rest of the night!

• spending my writing time on stuff that I actively feel my juices flowing for in the moment.

My goal here is a sustainable routine, with cycles of rest built in to help me stay charged and centered. I made a bunch of resolutions this weekend about what I want to achieve in 2022, but I'm now thinking of what will help me heal at the same time. So I present:

New Year's Restorations: A Self-Care Plan

• I took one week of vacation in 2021. I don't have PTO at my current job, but maybe in 2022 I can find a way to take more time off, haha.

• It'd be nice to take a day every month or so for absolutely no work, no contact with people, no Twitter, just sleeping late and chilling.

• Meditation maybe? Actual meditation has never worked for me, but I get okay results from putting on some music and trying to focus on the music as closely as possible.

• Part of what I've been feeling is sleep disruption/ physical fatigue. Maybe I can do an audit of my diet/ sleep/ whatever else and see if there's anything I can do to feel less generally tired. 

• Every two hours of uninterrupted work, take a break for something enjoyable—unless I'm super in the zone and enjoying the work!

I'm going to try to hold myself accountable for this forced resting by putting a couple reminders on my calendar. I'm also going to think more generally about how I can codify this stuff in my practical routines, so I'm just in the habit of it.