Words from a wallflower

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a soap opera with as much drama as I experience. Welcome to this week’s episode.

I had an incident happen over the weekend that made me want to shut off the rest of the world. I needed to get away from everything that was outside my own little bubble—posts about the latest marriage between people I went to school with, the group chats for shifts needing to be covered at work, the texts from my friends telling me about their weekend. Normally I have my phone with me at all times, but all the notifications that would plaster my lock screen the next morning were not important. I needed time for myself because the stress in my life was weighing on my shoulders, and that one incident from the weekend sent me over the edge.

The situation I’m going through is much like the piles growing taller on my desk. I throw my mail, textbooks, snacks, anything on my desk with the intention of dealing with it later. Of course later never comes in my mind, and the clutter keeps growing until it becomes overwhelming. The “later” I’ve been putting off can’t wait any longer.

Things had been building up to this weekend. I didn’t deal with what happened right away, as evident from my excessive Netflix binging and junk food consumption that I let myself succumb to over the past couple days. Now it’s time to clean my desk.

It’s a good habit to take time for yourself, especially when life relentlessly gnarls its teeth at you. Before you stand up to that beast, you need to take care of yourself to have your best foot forward. I often forget that. This doesn’t necessarily mean shutting your phone off and putting it in the other room. It just means to do something that brings you comfort.

My disconnect from the world for half a day was refreshing. As much as I didn’t want to deal with the situation the next day, I felt more ready for it than I would have been otherwise. I’m hoping I will soon be able