My mental health has been really bad for the last week or so, so this post will be short. But I wanted to drop in and let you know: it’s okay to let go, and it’s okay to hold on.

Sometimes I wake up and feel great and I make a big list of To-Do items for the day. I like motivation and I hate wasting it, so when I feel motivated, I like to plunge deep into it and find the things I’ve been putting off the longest that need the most attention. This helps me to focus, to divert my energy towards things that I might otherwise ignore. I do this because it feels good – really good – to mark off things that are hard to do from my To-Do lists.

But sometimes that motivation fades as the day progresses. Sometimes my mood shifts into and out of different places of anxiety, depression, stress, exhaustion, and overall basic levels of functioning to the point that I no longer have that motivation to get done the really difficult things.

That happened today.

I woke up feeling really good, especially after the last week of feeling wretched. So I made plans to go to my storage unit and bring home as many books as I can. My goal is to empty out my storage unit by the end of the year so that I can save the $200 a month I’m paying for the unit. But over the last hour, that motivation has faded almost entirely and I pretty much just want to stay in comfy clothes, drink tea, read, and cross-stitch for the rest of the day. (And eat chocolate, but alas, I don’t have any.)

Now, sometimes what we need in these moments is to try and do the hard thing anyway. Is writing the thing I’m putting off? Maybe I need to dig in my heels and commit to 30 minutes – 1 hour of writing, even if I feel too tired to do so. Am I behind on my reading list? Maybe I should read just 10 pages, or 1 chapter. This is important to do because often, once we start doing the things we’ve been putting off, the act itself is enough to re-energize us and we get done even more than we originally intended. Or, even if we fall short of the original goal, we can feel proud of the fact that we still did more than we wanted in the moment.

Life isn’t always only filled with the things we love to do. Sometimes we have to be the adults and do the things we don’t want to do.

But sometimes we also need to recognize when we need a break. This can be extremely hard for overachievers, like me. Once I’ve made a plan, I do not like to change it. If I’ve settled in my mind I’m going to do something at a certain time, anything that gets in the way or alters those plans are more than just minor nuisances. They make me feel like my brain is cracking open. (No joke.) Then, when I try to force myself to stay on schedule, I usually get very angry and impatient and I have completely irrational reactions to the things going on around me.

It’s in those moments I need to remember that sometimes it’s ok to let go. That, even after a week where I got nothing done because my mental health was bad, I don’t need to get all of those things done at once. It’s okay to space them out and take care of myself while also getting things done. I also have a tendency to avoid some things by trying to do others, and this almost inevitably causes so much of a mental and emotional hassle for me, it ruins my chance of getting anything done at all.

Learning to tell the difference between when I need to hold on and when I need to let go is something I’m sure I’ll be learning for the rest of my life. But even just knowing that I need to take this day-by-day to really learn how to read myself, my body, my energy, my mind, is comforting.

Today, I had plans to go to my storage unit.
Today, I’m letting go of that and choosing, instead, to commit to sweeping up the bathrooms.
Today, I’m giving myself a chance to relax and rest after a week of immense and debilitating struggles.