Maya had a habit of treating rest like a prize she could only claim after completing absolutely everything.
Unfortunately, “everything” was a sneaky little jerk that kept adding things to the list.
There was always another load of laundry, another email, another room that needed cleaning, another errand she could squeeze in before dinner. Even when she sat down, she wasn’t really resting. She’d scroll through her phone while mentally reorganizing cupboards, planning tomorrow and wondering whether she should get up and wipe down the bathroom sink.
One Saturday afternoon, Maya was standing in her kitchen staring at a spectacularly unimpressive pile of dirty dishes when she suddenly realized she was exhausted.
Not I could use another coffee exhausted.
More like if one more person asks me for something, I may quietly wander into the forest and become folklore exhausted.
She looked at the dishes.
Then she looked through the window at the sunshine.
And for once, Maya made a completely irresponsible decision.
She left the dishes there.
She grabbed a blanket, a book she’d been meaning to read for six months and a bowl of strawberries, and went outside.
At first, she couldn’t relax.
Her brain immediately began filing complaints.
You should really finish the kitchen.
You haven’t vacuumed.
You could at least answer those messages.
Maya almost went back inside.
Instead, she stretched out on the blanket and watched the clouds drift overhead.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Eventually she opened her book.Somewhere along the way, she stopped thinking about what she should be doing. She noticed how warm the sun felt on her feet. She listened to birds arguing loudly in a nearby tree about whatever extremely important bird business was happening that afternoon. She ate strawberries without simultaneously cleaning something.
And then, completely unexpectedly, Maya fell asleep.
Right there in the middle of the afternoon.
When she woke up an hour later, her first thought was panic.
I wasted the entire afternoon.
Then she realized something, she felt better. Not magically transformed. Her problems hadn’t disappeared. The laundry hadn’t folded itself, which frankly felt inconsiderate.
But her shoulders weren’t tight anymore.
Her thoughts weren’t racing.
For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel like she was running three minutes behind her own life.
Maya stayed outside until the sun began dropping behind the trees.
Eventually she went back inside.
The dishes were still there.
Nothing terrible had happened.
The world had somehow continued spinning despite the fact that Maya had spent several hours doing absolutely nothing productive.
She washed a few dishes, made herself dinner and left the rest for tomorrow.
And that became the beginning of something surprisingly difficult for her: learning to take care of herself before she reached the point of exhaustion.
Sometimes self-care was an afternoon outside.
Sometimes it was saying no without writing a five-paragraph apology.
Sometimes it was going to bed early, turning off her phone, eating something nourishing, taking a long shower or admitting that something could wait until tomorrow.
And sometimes it was simply sitting down while there were still dishes in the sink.
Maya eventually realized she’d spent years believing rest was something she had to earn.
She had been wrong.
Rest wasn’t the reward for finishing everything. It was one of the things that allowed her to keep going.
And the dishes?
They still never learned to wash themselves.
But Maya finally learned that sometimes they could damn well wait. ❤️🌿✨
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