Mattox Live

When doing a workout schedule, it’s recommended that one takes a recovery day to allow muscles to repair themselves. It’s an important step in everyone’s exercise routine. Arm day. Leg day. Ab day. Every part of your body gets a day.

But why is it we all too often forget the need to have recovery days mentally and emotionally from every day life?

I forget this myself, and I find my “days off” to be busier and more stressful than days I “go into work.” A part of that is the fact I have so many side hustles, so even if I don’t “go to work” I am still working. And if I’m not working I’m frantically trying to get my home back in order. Before long, after weeks of this I find myself going into burn out mode.

I can’t tell you how many nights I go to bed and long for a vacation to the mountains. Nights in a cabin, away from every day life, listening to the sounds of the trees. If I’m lucky it’ll rain and sleep is deeper than normal. Recovery days and nights.

Lately, I’ve been brought down by people. Well, I guess it’s not really a “lately” situation. It’s been happening for awhile, but for sake of this blog we will say “lately.”

Just when I start to have faith in humanity, I delve into the comments section of an article. Not a day passes right now that my Facebook news feed doesn’t have a death announcement… usually from COVID. (And I mistakenly read THOSE comments, too.) And just when I think I’m on the right track, I start to second guess everything.

I need a recovery day.

So I’m taking one today.

It’s been raining off and on all day, creating a perfect soundtrack for my day that so far has featured drinking coffee, reading the news, and playing some Pokemon Go.

I will not feel guilty for taking this day.

I am actually a pretty terrible vacationer. I’m too much of a planner, to the point I’m always thinking about what I should be doing (or planning ahead to what’s next) versus enjoying what I am doing right that moment.

“You can not pour from an empty cup,” or some variation of that is a saying I remind myself of often. Or the idea that sometimes you have to stop and “sharpen the saw” to get the job done better and more efficiently than if you just keep pushing forward.

So today I celebrate time to slow down. Time to actually stop and recover from that constant need to GO.

Coffee cups up, y’all. Have a great rest of the week.