From the time I started college until I graduate from grad school, life was pretty nonstop. Between planning for life, running around campus (and the world) like a chicken with its head cut off, and figuring out what I wanted to be when I grow up (still don't know), I forgot to take care of some basic things. I primarily stopped taking care of myself. If you're imagining I just stopped showering and only ate cheesy puffs, that's not quite what I mean. Imagine forgetting that you also have emotional and mental needs, and just ignore them in favor of over-committing yourself. Imagine doing that for a few years without stopping to take a breath.

Any college student understands the want and need to commit to so many things and have a job and think about post graduation plans and make sure that you call your mom once a week. At the end of each semester, you feel like a candle wick at its end. Only to repeat the process for a few more semesters. By the end of college you've spent several years burning yourself out and not taking time to breathe and rest. Or at least, that's what happened to me. Then I graduated, moved home, and slowly remade my wick.

I got more than five hours of sleep a night. I regularly saw sunlight. I stopped drinking coffee like it was my life force. I went hiking. I read books and articles for fun. I caught up with old friends. I baked. I wasn't constantly on the verge of getting sick. I took a breath and I got rid of things I didn't need.

The time after graduation until I started my job gave me something that I didn't know I needed. A break. Not only a physical break from constantly running from one place to the next, but a mental break. No longer did I have to think about work related duties that caused me anxiety and stress. No longer did I have to juggle two jobs and grad school. My main stress was finding a job (which, I recognize is a luxury). But really, I didn't have the same constant worry I did as a student, creating space to spend time working on myself. You can go through the motions of self care all you want, but when that train comes to a screeching halt, you need to be able to figure out how to get the engine moving again. That's what my time between college and the real world was, figuring out to not only get the train moving, but also back on the track.

In the months leading to graduation, I felt like I was drowning. I was always one bad comment from crying. I wanted to invest in my relationships, but didn't have the energy to commit or even give people what they deserved in those relationships. I was constantly on edge, and would leave situations needing to apologize to my closest friends because I'd get snappy about stupid things. I needed to take a pause from life that a weekend off of work would not provide. Even when I wasn't working or doing school, all of my mental energy went towards those things.

The summer after grad school, I slowly shed those feelings of unhappiness. Two weeks of a break from school and work helped the sleep deprivation. Two months of self reflection and self care eased discontent feelings. Life went on, and I actually paid attention. If something caused my stress, I would actually think about why and how I could fix it before it got any worse. I was learning to take a breath and roll with whatever life gave me. I'm trying to make taking a breath a bigger part of how I approach life every day so I don't build up years of frustration over menial things.