The Reality of My Spring Break

Ashley

Last week was Spring Break. I've always loved the respite that Spring Break provides as well as the clear transition to start getting the 'When Is It Summer!?' fever. I completely planned on utilizing some of the self care ideas I talked about in 10 Cost Effective Ways to Practice Self Care Over Spring Break while dreaming of more glamorous breaks in the past. (I did a real vague variation on them that I'll get to later in this post.)My whole Spring Break plan didn't exactly pan out the way I thought it would because I got sick. I've known for years that something was off when I get sick. Friends and family would bounce back seamlessly as I would stagger on for weeks with the slightest of colds. No matter what I did, I just couldn't shake what was ailing me. In some ways, my diagnosis of Chron's Disease was an answer to this recurring sickness cycle. Knowing that and knowing that I have some yearly check ups in the coming weeks, I decided to cancel all activities sans a few and rest.I've never been good at rest. There's something about it that that over the years transformed into a taboo thing for me. Maybe it's because our culture seems to equate rest with laziness. Laziness isn't something I ever wanted to be tagged by. I was always told that rest was for the weak so I stopped resting. This week, I brought it back. I didn't bring it back in the sense that I was reading or liking pins on Pinterest to look at later but to actually rest. Actually resting for me means not forging ahead trying to conquer things whether it was working on ongoing projects or trying to get tasks done around the house.Intentionally looking for real non-working rest is what started me down a Netflix rabbit hole. I had to watch something that I couldn't multitask while doing. For me, that meant finding a show in another language that I needed to read the subtitles for. I settled on Mossad 101 (HaMidrasha), an Israeli show focusing on Israeli Secret Service agent training. I absolutely loved listening to the Hebrew language while reading the dialogue. The twists and turns got me right up until the very end. I really do hope there's a season 2 that follows.Afterwards, I switched to Jane the Virgin, a quirky telenovela centered around one mistaken moment. Oh, how I have fallen in love with this show. It's the perfect mix of drama and comedy. The characters are all so intriguing on their own but the lead, Jane, captured me in such a unique way as she's totally relatable. From waiting around on texts and phone calls to crossing boundaries for her friends, this girl is fantastic. I'm still on season 1 but I can't wait to see how things unfold from here.When Rick got home from work one day, I asked him if I was even doing a good job at resting. He laughed at me. I can't blame him. It seems like such a ridiculous question. Between laughs, he told me that I had indeed rested and I had done a good job at it. Apparently, vegging out on the couch got his vote of approval - or at least it did last week. It was good to hear, especially since it's something that I don't regard myself to be good at doing. I may not have done the self-care ideas that I posted a few weeks back, but I was able to sneak some special things into my couch laying - I painted my toes wine and gold, did a facial mask and played a lot of games on my phone.How'd your Spring Break go? What's your go to when you're sick? P.S. I did listen to an awesome interview on The Happy Hour with Heather Avis who is releasing her book today, The Lucky Few: Finding God's Best in the Most Unlikely Places. It's about an adoptive family to three kids, two of which have down syndrome. She talks about the journey they took to become this family of five. She discusses a lot of the same things that my family has been through - open heart surgery on a baby, the public school system and I'm sure so much more. I can't wait to read this from the angle of an adopted mom. If you're new around here, my twin sister, Lori, has down syndrome so it's a topic that hits my heart very closely..