It's funny how much you can pare down all those things you always thought were so vital to life and living it. When I decided to take a break from working full time, one of the main aspects of my life I wanted to focus on was to get completely well - my sugar levels tended to go ff kilter very easily, I was gaining weight for no discernible reason and my foot (one or the other, occasionally both) was giving more trouble than all my wonderful collection of shoes was worth. My doctor said most of it was stress related and somehow I had to agree, since I had more or less eliminated all the other factors involved and saw how on the days I did not go in to work, I felt so much better. So, after much thought and some agonising, I made up my mind, shocked a few friends and many who knew me only casually and walked out of a life that had become a painful routine and into one that is, in many ways, so much happier and healthier.
Not too long ago, a lot of people I know did not believe in stress as a genuine health unbalancer, if I may make up my own wonderful word. Today, almost everyone blames some part of their mental, physical or emotional disturbances on stress, taking occasional time out to fix the problem, instead of - like me - waiting until it gets to a point where it becomes a choice between going on or falling flat on your face. And it is so necessary to stop, think, sort things out and then go back to what you are doing, feeling newer and more improved than ever. In the process of doing this for myself, I have found that so much of what I once believed to be essential is actually trivia that can very easily be left behind without too much heartburn.
Like make-up, fancy clothes and jewellery, snob value shoes and bags and whatever else goes on you rather than into you. While I still love all that, I do not miss it beyond the very basic elements of the feel of luxe fabric, the beauty of an exclusive jewel or the exquisite vamp of a stiletto sandal. It is external, a kind of take it or leave it sort of situation that I can have fun with now that I do not feel constrained to be part of it. I know that when I do decide to go back to working full time outside my own home, I will go back into the cycle of putting on my face, choosing my clothes carefully and sliding into pretty heels before going out and about, but for now, casual pajamas, flip-flops and a clean and shiny face are fine by me, thank you!
But there is more to time out than these accessories. There is the attitude that matters. Even though you, like me, will always want to know what people you care about feel and think about you and your work and more, spending a little time thinking about what you really are and want makes you realise that realistic, honest, critical self-image is far more important than how others see you. Can you look at yourself in the mirror and approve, not from a vain and conceited perspective, but with truth and detatchment, and like what you see? Today, two months after I quit working, I do. I know that what I am may not be what I have always wanted to be, but it is a far more balanced, interesting and, most and best of all, happy soul that looks back at me.
Just for that, everything that I have given up for now is well worth it.
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