Throw in the Towel, You Are Not Above Rest.

Image: of me finally living my best life and leaving the garbage behind

Seven years. I haven’t been on a vacation for the sake of rest for seven years. I’ve just been working non stop from school, to working and for me personally, I went to school again, to more work, and now school again. Last month, I burnt out harder than I ever had in my life. I’ve been hospitalized for burnout but this time I physically couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. It was terrifying. I arrogantly kept thinking I could keep pushing myself harder and that I was just being weak, but everyone needs to take a break.

Every body needs a break. Every body type, shape, race, anything. I used to think because I come from “hard working black women” that I would be able to continue to work myself into the ground and only get hospitalized for overwork once a year and that would be it, but that is no way to live.

It doesn’t matter how hard of a worker you are everyone needs to rest. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to ignore or escape from. If you don’t listen to this wisdom from your body, it will decide for you. I barely even remember those two weeks of intense burnout because I was in and out of sleep in a fever dream. My body is still recovering from it. It doesn’t seem that way because I’m a fighter, but I’m still dealing with it. I get winded faster and my whole immune system is more susceptible to illness. I was trying to prove so much that I was a good person, and a hard worker that I broke myself apart. Please please please take vacations, go on break, I ended up having to break down to the lowest point in my life to truly realize this. You cannot help others until you fully take care of yourself. I’ve said it many times before but I was lying to myself.

I thought I was different but I’m not. I’m human, and that’s okay. Take your space. Leave everything if you have to just to find yourself again. Seriously quit your job if it is destroying you. My edges were gone. My hair was falling out and my teeth were loose. I was almost fainting everyday. I did faint a couple of times in our break room and got back up and went back to work. Who does that? Beyoncé said it the best: “You won’t break my soul.” The song Break my Soul by the Queen herself Beyoncé has been a spiritual anthem lately. I’m coming back healthier than I’ve ever been and not letting myself fall into obsessive capitalist patterns again. Period.