For those of you that didn't know, I've taken a week's annual leave from the day-job to have a staycation with Mr and our menagerie of pets.
If you need me this weekend, I'll be right here; engrossed in my new book (I love this series so much!), sipping tea, indulging in a few comfort foods (hello mac&cheese croquettes) in comfy clothes and under a blanket.
Friday night and you leave the office so exhausted and defeated that you start to cry as you walk out of the front door.
Working late and cancelling plans because it's easier to work on a Friday night when you can sleep it off the next day.
Waking up multiple times each night with a pounding heart and thoughts of to-do lists or high risk issues spinning around your head.
So tired you're physically shaking. Feeling like a complete fucking mess, failure, that you're not cut out for this shit.
So, how do you shake off the week from hell?
This is what you don't do.
There is something about the change of the seasons that brings on a period of contemplation and revision.
Call it season affective disorder, call it the Hunter's Moon tonight sending us headlong towards Halloween and the end of the year, or the fatigue hitting after all the back to school fervour, but I have felt pulled to shut the door to others and turn inwards for a spell.
Recently I've been thinking about the coping methods we all employ when life gets busy, difficult, or when we struggle to cope.
How often do you open an email and mentally note to come back to it later? How often do you follow through?
It's easy to think that we will wait until life slows down, for the better moment, for the perfect moment. But life just doesn't work that way.
I nearly fell off my chair this morning. It felt entirely impossible that next week we enter October.
Looking back one year this week, I was going through a huge period of change and growth. I was walking away from my dream career, from the place that had been the backbone of 'the plan' for the best part of the previous three years.
The year that followed has definitely been a mixed bag; although you learn most about yourself when going through a difficult period.
