I’ve often thought about what it meant to take a “mental health day” off work. We’re allowed to use them as sick days (of which we thankfully get unlimited). Hooray for being salaried!

As a kid, during breaks, I would do stuff like play video games and hang out with friends. As an adult, I find that doing the same leaves me exhausted and unprepared for the coming week. Spending the whole day watching anime or whatever just makes me feel like crap when I know I have stuff I need to do. I think the idea that I can truly relax by doing these low-effort-high-reward dopamine activities is kind of bs. It’s just numbing my negative emotions instead of actually processing them, right? They’ll all come rushing back when it’s time to get back to work, blocking me from getting stuff done easily.

I really need to drill it in my head that a good self-care day is NOT the same as a “do whatever monkey brain wants” day. It’s a day to set myself up for success. I’ll do the chores first, the journaling, the tidying. I just get a sinking feeling that I’ll never get to the monkey brain lazy stuff, because I want to do so many other things. How can I keep becoming a better, more interesting person while also enjoying life a little? Maybe working on marketable skills should be secondary at least for these few years, though. I talked to my mentor, and they said they only started doing many things in their late 20s. That made me feel a bit better.

My mom goes through life just by feeling, and she thinks it’s kind of ridiculous that I pick everything apart and plan things step by step. Everything is a plan. But I really don’t know how else to go through life.

As part of my graduation gap semester, I had this grand plan to become both functional and (embarrassingly) desirable. I acquired some basic singing skills, and I made myself meet new people. I don’t think I got any less socially anxious, but my life has changed; I have plenty of people I can hang out with now. (How much I can actually open up to anyone is a different story, though.) I want to learn how to dance next! It’s nice when people know how to move. And fix my skin.