I asked for a day off

I've been working from home since the beginning of October, when Sri Lanka was hit by its second wave of COVID-19. I left the house once for a work-related event but I've been blessed with a job that gives me the option of working remotely.

To be honest, I don't feel like I'm doing as much work as I used to back when I did got to office. I feel guilty about this. I used to work on at least two stories a day but now I usually send in only one. I also get to work in my pajamas, from the comfort of my bedroom, and I don't spend 2 1/2 hours on the road, travelling to and from work.

I feel like I'm saving money because I don't spend on transport or food.

I put in less effort because I don't have office clothes added to the laundry basked every day. I take three steps at most from my bed to my laptop. I don't have to wait for tuks and trains and buses or walk from one place to another.

Given all of this, I felt guilty about asking for a day off. But I also knew I needed one. I have been working evenings and nights for two whole months and it came to a point where I couldn't type a word without making a mistake because lifting my fingers off the keyboard took too much effort. I struggled to string together simple sentences because words felt like soap bubbles that burst before you could touch them.

I would feel this intense anger welling up inside me whenever there was an update and I had to do what felt like even more work but was actually a paragraph at most. I would feel tears threatening to spill from my eyes whenever I even looked at a Word document.

It got to a point where I was spending an extra hour on work that honesty should not have been taking that much effort.

And I would pay data bill after data bill and struggle to juggle work with whatever I had to do at home.

So after complaining about being extremely tired to way too many people, I finally decided to take a Sunday off so I get an entire weekend to do nothing. And I didn't do any kind of work that weekend. Well, sort of. I cooked all of Sunday and we had company in the evening, which meant that I actually didn't get much of a break.

But I didn't switch on the laptop once on Sunday.

And I'm glad I asked for a day off. I'm glad I didn't give in and work instead. And I'm glad I dealt with that feeling of guilt by convincing myself that I deserved this.

Because we all do. We all deserve a break. Yes, even when we are working from home.

Being in your PJs, snacking while working, or not leaving the bed does not mean that you are not working your butt off day after day. It does not mean that you don't need to recharge. In fact, for some of us, it means we need to recharge more often.

Our outlets to let off steam are gone. I haven't met my friends or gone out with them in two months. I can't read because I can no longer focus long enough to get through a single page. There's nothing to look forward to. Nothing to keep myself occupied with. So all my anger and unhappiness and frustrations keep building up. And I keep ignoring it because hey! I am one of the lucky ones who has a job, an income, the option of working from home.

But this does not mean that I shouldn't take a break once in a while. Not only do I deserve it, but I also need it.

And you do too.