Is there such a thing as not knowing how to take a break? Because it sure as hell feels as if I suffer from exactly this problem. Let me explain: I have been working as a graphic design intern (paid! which is honestly a rarity in Berlin, so I count myself pretty damned lucky) for a little over a month now, meaning I now wake up at 7:30, take care of some things around the flat, get ready, and head off to work around 9:30, where I stay until anywhere from 6:00-7:00 from Monday-Thursday. After returning home, I try to clean my flat and focus on blogging, photography, and music. Fridays were previously spent babysitting, which I unfortunately stopped doing in order to focus more on love from berlin as well as my own photography and music. As you can imagine, I have one heck of a full schedule on my plate, and that isn’t even taking into account much needed social time with friends and loved ones (my boyfriend and two furry monsters, just to clarify).
It isn’t just the fact that I have more than enough for two people on my plate – it’s that the work I do in addition to my internship is work where I am my own boss. The problem with being your own boss isn’t that without designated working hours you become a lazy sack of crap – au contraire, my friend. The problem is that you are 10 times harder on yourself than you would be on any other employee. And the whole bit about lacking set working hours? It just means you end up working overtime, every time. In my specific case, considering the fact that my actual working hours are already full from Monday through Friday, I am really am just left with my evenings after work, Friday, and the weekends – which is honestly the time most people spend relaxing (and rightly so!). A big part of my work is also social media based, so I often feel as if there really is no start or end to my social media work day. The result: I have become somewhat of a workaholic, and when I actually do sign off for the day after work and spend the evening in watching netflix with the boyfriend, I feel extremely guilty.
Despite my current inability to ever really chill-the-fuck-out about work, I recently did do something previously unheard of: I let go. I think that at a certain point in time, we are familiar with ourselves enough to know what our positive qualities are as well as what our negative ones are and can freely admit them to ourselves. One thing I know about myself? I tend to have a very difficult time letting go. Whether it is a box full of old ticket movie stubs, friendships that have long outrun their expiration date, or commitments that are just no longer feasible (for whatever reason), I tend to hold on with a deadly grip. If I were being overly kind (and delusional), I would just brand myself as adorably sentimental. And yeah, I mean I guess it’s also true to an extent. It’s a quality I do like about myself. It prevents me from ever becoming jaded and makes me want to reach out and help those around me. But it’s also what makes me that damned idiot who needs months to recover from break ups. I have a hard time admitting to myself that the time has passed for certain things because I view it as a failure on my part for “quitting” and feel as if I need to press on to not let anyone down. I was reluctant to tell my boss at my previous internship that with my new internship it was simply impossible to do both. I was reluctant to tell the woman I babysat for that I just did not have enough time in my week to babysit anymore. But I did it for the first time, and honestly, it felt okay.
If I were to have been placed in this exact situation a few months ago, I wouldn’t have had the courage or the heart to tell both my old boss and the woman who employed me that I no longer was able to work for them. I would have tried to do it all. I wouldn’t have wanted to let anyone down. I would have felt emotionally responsible. But you are no good to yourself if you are doing things solely for the interest of others and not taking into account what you truly want. Your quality of work will also suffer if you spread yourself too thinly, which in that case you really aren’t helping anyone in the end. As I began to look at things differently, it also dawned on me that it was not as if I was the last design intern on the planet or the last 20-something year old capable of babysitting. Both my old boss and employee would find new people to hire. The responsible thing to do isn’t just to grit your teeth and trudge on. It is to be mature, fair, and honest not just to those around you but yourself as well. It isn’t quitting, it isn’t admitting defeat. It’s about focusing on a few important things and doing the best damned job possible of those exact things. And those things are allowed to change, because they can and they will. And when you have to leave other things behind in favor of new things it’s okay. No one has to burn bridges. I am still on great terms with both my previous boss and employer, despite that overwhelming fear I had that they would dislike me for “letting them down”.
I know that I lead with my heart, whereas others lead with their heads. And you know what? It’s okay. We all are how we are and we should love ourselves for it because it makes us who we are. Most qualities have positive and negative traits about them, so it’s all about letting the good aspects of those qualities shine, and learning how to manage the bad aspects. So I might just start to try to tackle throwing away all of those old pieces of paper and small life souvenirs wrapped up in memories. Because the memories will always be there, even when the objects aren’t.
Photography: Dean
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