As many of you may know, I’m painting the exterior of my house during my sabbatical. Monday morning I woke up and just started working on the daunting task. I purposefully chose not to play music or anything because I wanted to hear myself think. Do you know what my inner self was saying ALL day on Monday? “There is NO WAY you can paint this whole house by yourself!” Maybe I should have prefaced this blog post by mentioning how independent and stubborn I am. It is very difficult for me to ask for help with anything. Fast forward to Thursday, I woke up and almost starting crying because I felt so overwhelmed by the huge amount of work I still had to do. Truly, I had not even put a dent in the task by the time Thursday came and I was already so tired. This stress and anxiety was not how I pictured my sabbatical. So I swallowed my pride and called my father in-law for help. And guess what? He has a SPRAY GUN! My excitement toward getting the job done has instantly returned. I also have a friend coming to help me Tuesday and Thursday next week. If only I had called for help when I started the project rather than a week into it, I could have avoided that feeling of being so overwhelmed. It may seem silly, but at almost 30 years old, I’m just now learning that asking for help isn’t such a bad thing.
This first week has been a week of silence and self reflection for me.