The importance of rest

I’ve just been on vacation for a full week and it has been amazing! I got to go home for a few days and see my family. I have seven nieces and nephews and every time I go home to see them – around two to three times a year – they’ve changed and grown and I get to know them all over again. It’s really wonderful. I also got to eat some delicious food with my favorite aunt and uncle: Julia Child’s Chicken Melon aka what I call, “Chicken taken out of it’s skin, smushed up with other stuff, and stuck back inside it’s own skin,” venison egg rolls, pumpkin soup, Meyer lemon sorbet, and peach and cornmeal upside down skillet cake. Amazing.

I ran on the Prairie Path and finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics (thanks for the recommendation, Maura!) and The Dream Thieves. I ate cheese. I watched Doctor Who (I’m really late to jumping onto Doctor Who bandwagon – I cried when Donna “died.”  Nerd alert). I tried to check my work email only sparingly. I did have to do a tiny bit of work coordinating a presentation I didn’t know I was doing next week (surprise!) but other than that it was relatively work free.

Anyway, all of this to say that vacation had me thinking about, well, vacation. It’s important. Not vacation itself, but the idea of vacation, the idea of rest. My friend Beth wrote a great post on her blog about keeping the Sabbath and rest. While I was resting with family and friends (cheese counts as a friend…) I was remembering how vital it is to have some time to rest, relax, and just be. Sometimes that resting means reading or finishing the curtains for my room or getting coffee with friends or going for a walk. It’s good to have time away from work to do that because even though we joke at the library that we’re “not saving lives” and that are work can wait a day, it is important. It’s important because books, literacy, access to technology, programming, help, kindness, and a safe place for someone to stay a few hours without having to buy anything is important. All of that importance and the amount I care about my job takes a lot of energy. That needs to be recharged every once in a while. That’s why using your weekends and other time off is crucial.

So find your way to relax where you don’t have to think about work. Is it getting a drink with friends to catch up or watching the football game on Sunday. Whatever it is, find it and do it. Not just for your job, but for your own sanity.