Learning to relax again: how do you manage to do that? Bente (23) is a freelance journalist and works as an online editor at Flow. Having experienced a near-burn-out, she’s finding her way to a life with less stress. And every Friday, she takes us with her on her journey to get there.
Sometimes you wake up and you think to yourself: ‘Today is not gonna be my day’. Then you’re proved right: you drop your cup of tea all over your breakfast, you scream in frustration because you can’t find any clean socks, and it starts to rain the minute you step outside your front door. I had one of these days this week. Everything annoyed me, and I felt rotten without any apparent reason.
Most people decide to accept their fate on such an unpleasant day and make the best of it. Not me. I prefer to don a suit of armor and go into battle with the bad day. Because it doesn’t feel right, and I want to get rid of that feeling as fast as possible.
So, on the morning of my bad day, I did all the things that normally make me happy. I read a few pages of my book, watched my favorite series, crocheted a bit, and made a huge lunch. But nothing helped. I still felt the same at one o’clock in the afternoon.
I app’d a friend who lives in the area and told her about my misery. It turned out that I was not the only one having a difficult day. “Shall we go out for a walk when it stops raining?” she suggested. A few hours later she was standing at my front door, with large backpack.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked surprised. I thought we were going for a short walk, not a three-day trek. She unzipped the bag and pulled out a huge green mass. A petticoat. She handed it to me and said: “Whenever I feel bad, I just put on this skirt. And then I feel a lot better. You can borrow it.”
That evening I decided to put on the skirt. My friend was right, I felt better. And it had nothing to do with my victorious battle against the bad day, but with my friend’s stuffed backpack. Because, where I am unable make my day any fun, she manages to do so with something so small. So, the next time I wake up to a bad day, I’m going to simply swap the battle axe for a petticoat and a good get-together.
- Bente’s other blogs can be found here.
Text Bente van de Wouw Translation Julia Gorodecky Photography
