My biggest red flag is my ability to quite literally never take a break. I am always running around from one place to the next and the thought of sitting still for too long makes me anxious.
After months of constant traveling and walking almost 30,000 steps a day, only sitting to eat or sleep, coming home has been way harder than I anticipated.
I thought I would be so exhausted from all the chaos that I would sleep for days and love sitting and catching up on Netflix shows or something of that nature. In reality, the first morning I was home, I woke up at 5 a.m. due to jet lag, put on my shoes and went for a run.
Since then, not much has changed.
I had a routine of getting up every day and immediately going, not stopping until long after sunset, while I was abroad. So, even when my body was begging for a break, the idea of taking it seemed inconceivable.
However, this didn’t just start after traveling this summer. It has always been a bad habit of mine.
When I am out in Indiana for school, I tend to fill my days with as much as I can, barely squeezing in enough time to make dinner. This last semester, it occurred to me that I was working myself so hard that I wasn’t even making enough time to enjoy the good parts of college, like basketball games or even just hanging out in the living room with my roommates.
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The best thing that I learned last semester was to take the time to enjoy those moments. Go to the basketball game, have a game night with your friends, go out on the weekend. Listen to the times when your body is asking for a break, craving a moment of relaxation.
Even though this lesson was so big for me this last semester, it felt so much harder to apply it to my life after returning home from Europe. However, in the last couple of weeks, I have started to learn that solitude doesn’t have to be found in pure chaos, rather in the moments when you are sitting in a cozy chair reading a book or playing cards with your family.
Life doesn’t have to be this constant state of mayhem. Your body and mind will thank you a thousand times over if you give it time to find peace in the quiet moments too.
Gentry Keener (she/her) is a junior studying journalism and political science.
