Reset

 Today, I took the day off. On most people's calendars, it's a random Tuesday, a work day for some and summer vacation for most of my colleagues. I chose today because I had a deadline yesterday that led to my working through much of the weekend. In addition, my husband has been taking long weekends which, while nice, throw my typical routine off-kilter. I needed a day without deadlines, one where my schedule was my own and my to-do list consisted only of things I wanted to do, preferably in a quiet house.

And I took it. 

And I highly recommend it. 

Most of the time, I'm good at being proactive, at "taking a day" before I get to a grouchy and overwhelmed state, but circumstances of my own creation led me to keep pushing forward, telling the little voice in my head "not now, not now."

That should have been my first clue.

Why do we do this to ourselves? 

I very nearly didn't write this post, not because I didn't want to write a post today, or because I'm writing it so late in the day, but because a small part of me felt guilty about taking a random Tuesday all to myself, throwing productivity out the window. I even wrote (and just now deleted)  a sentence or two about how I rarely take days like this, like that's some kind of badge of honor.

It isn't. There's no honor in not taking care of ourselves.

So, here I am, writing this post. Not to tell you about what I did, but to give you permission to do the same. We should all feel the freedom to take a random day off just for ourselves. Just because. And when the inevitable "it must be nice" comments arise or the thoughts of "there are so many other things I should have done" reverberate in our heads, we need to neutralize them.

It is nice. And all of those other things will still be there tomorrow.

Today, however, is for me and, to co-mingle Rhett Butler with an old L'Oreal commercial, frankly, my dear, I'm worth it.

And so are you.

And today? It was wonderful.