How Do You Relax? Or More Accurately, How Does One Relax?

Is there such a thing as active relaxation? If not, I think I've found a new arena to fail in...

This week has been a designated ‘rest and restore’ window, the first week of the year that I haven’t been at some stage of a book, and a lull after the psychotic crafting™ of the previous two weeks. It will probably not surprise you that I haven’t—at least on paper— done exceptionally well at either objective.  I potentially need some kind of sofa harness. Sans suggestiveness.

On Monday, the very first day of my personally mandated go-slow, I cleared out the cellar, the downstairs loo and the strange box space which we’ve termed ‘the room of requirement’ since week one of our tenancy. Where things land when you move is deadly - get it wrong and you’re probably going to be stuck for years with a) shit that you literally will never use stacked up like tessellating Tetris cubes and b) heavy furniture placed in completely the wrong spots for your actual life. While psychotically crafting, I also finally got around to shifting some of these mistakes. Hooray! However, this left the BTS looking like an absolute doss house (centimetres out of camera shot). I had started the ball rolling in the most chaotic and unliveable with way, meaning there was no real alternative than some woman power to see it through. Seven and a half hours later, with my athleisure covered shoulder to ankle in grime and mould, I found myself on a manic dash to make school pick-up, peddling my bike like Lance Armstrong give or take the drugs. The day had just disappeared in a puff of dust. Notexactlyrelaxing.

Day two, I decided a change was as good as rest, so I booked into a yoga class and enjoyed a long-ago-booked dinner at a sizzling hot resto in Soho. For me, at least in the past, these things have helped offer succour and support. And don’t get me wrong, the class was wonderful, the food was great, and I loved seeing my friend. Just none of it did what it usually does. Dragging myself home, I felt like my joints had been doused in tar.

Midweek, I reached for the self-care staples of pedi and pottering. Sadly, the rot had set in early in the am when I found myself washing my bits with shampoo and shampooing my hair with body lotion. I then somehow lost a book from my bike basket en route to returning it to the library (£11.99), broke a key in my bike lock (£44.99) and killingly left my phone on my pedicure chair, which I only realised after I’d cycled against gale force winds all the way back home. The additional round trip really did crush my soul and the blanket of ‘why me?’ enveloped the rest of the day.

CLEARLY, I just needed to sit down. CLEARLY, I shouldn’t have left the house. The problem is that I find it impossible to go from 100 to zero. All week, I tried in vain to watch a new series on the telly and opened books but managed only three or four pages before casting them aside. I started a new knitting pattern but barely cast on, wrote meal plans that I didn’t cook. I just could not engage, or more correctly, disengage. I cannot simply click my fingers and switch from hyperdrive to comatose. When I am wound up, I need to slack myself off slowly, incrementally uncoiling before I can rediscover the physical ability to lie flat again, otherwise I work myself up into a mental melee. Forcing myself to sit still when there is so much live adrenaline pumping is deeply uncomfortable. I need to pop the balloon in a different way. 

I can remember as a student thinking that I would always need a fortnight on holiday – the first week to unwind and the second to actually enjoy myself. Now with two kids in tow, such indulgence seems like a castle in the sky. I generally come back from trips with at least 7% more grey hairs. But I definitely still see the logic, because we just aren’t machines to be put into low power mode as and when.

By Thursday, work had crept back in—a proposal here, a Teams call there—and just like that, Friday rolled around and my weekly window of toddler wrangling, soft play and tumbledrying commenced. I definitely should be cross with myself because technically, I didn’t manage to do what I had set out to. But it’s also true that I woke up today feeling pretty uncorseted. Sure, my week wasn’t very restful, but I actually did a lot of things to release angst. After the blitz, the house is starting to really ‘work’ well in a utilitarian sense. Instead of mad dashes up and down the stairs with washing baskets, dropping socks on every step, the laundry is now all located in the same place, and I’ve gained back precious minutes from the drudgery tally. We can now actually access the downstairs lav, which has already proven a gamechanger when trying to cajole the kids out of the door. The storage I’ve freed up has helped relieve the overstuffed creaking drawers and cabinets. What’s more, I found the Christmas decs and I know where all the Allen keys are. I find this all incredibly cathartic and comforting.

By keeping myself occupied in non-work-related work, I’ve turned the dial back down. I’m ultra-aware that burnout is something to be vigilant about and I realise I need to police myself better when it comes to getting into these sticky situations of overexertion in the first place. I take full responsibility for my porous boundaries, very much still a WIP. Also, I’m aware that self-prescribing more productivity to wind down from overproductivity is probably self-defeating. I know how many of us have so deeply internalised the hustle, that we’ve become almost estranged from our more yielding selves. There’s probably something deeply unhealthy in many elements of my conditioning. But here we are and I still think it’s worth noting that what is relaxing for me may very well send you over the edge—and vice versa. Whenever I feel myself overburdened by worries, I do find clearing out a drawer helps and I never sleep better than when I’ve laid out my outfit for the next day. I get that both might seem ultra-uptight and heap more frustration and pressure on people with a different personality type. But for me, they’re failsafes. There’s nowt so queer as folk is there? I guess the real key is finding what it is that floats your boat away from the stormy seas and into the lazy river. I may not have ratcheted right down to laidback, but overall, I reckon I’ll make it through the week ahead without shampooing my nethers. I’ll be crossing it off my tick list at least.