The Finality of Moving on

Finally, I’ve reached my final summer in Venice. It has been a long tough few years and I am definitely taking this summer to be kind to myself. To have a well deserved break and to understand my body and my needs. When you are a workaholic, balancing that feeling of emptiness and uselessness when you have free time can be quite tricky. I’m constantly telling myself that I should be studying, working or learning some kind of new skill - it’s all quite similar to my thoughts during the lock-down period.

I am pretty much by myself because many friends have gone home either due to the pandemic or just because its the holidays and they want to see their families. For me I think it’s a little risky to fly home to the U.K so I will just hang on around here. I have no plans of what I wanted to do because I was so under prepared for life post lock-down. I have been enjoying local events and trying to spend time with the few friends who remain here (note: most of them are busy working). Honestly I could take a few day trips but I need to budget because I am moving again in September.

I remember I felt like this years ago when I was in Korea (you can read the entry here). I had just ended my contract as an English teacher in order to move to Venice and that period of freedom was fun in the end, but I really had to have a mindset shift to allow myself to take time off, recover from burnout and reset my mind.

Once again I need to do the same. I’m sure within no time I’ll be back to work mode biting off more I can chew and over-challenging myself but at least I’ll get to do it from a new location.

What do you do when you need to relax?

How do you try to change your mindset when you’ve been going in a particular direction for so long?