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This is my first Hack Library School post, and I’d like to take the day off.  For the sake of self-care and to test my ability to let go of something I fretted for weeks about.  I’d challenge you all to do the same, as much as you are able. Maybe you’re where I was a year ago: burrowing into your own stress and doubt about graduate school applications, withholding socialization and comforts, telling yourself, “You can go see Catching Fire as soon as you’re finished with a first draft of your Statement of Purpose.” Maybe you’re where I am today: Approaching the final weeks of your first semester, writing papers, finishing projects, and preparing for finals.  Maybe you’re where I will be a year from now: Applying to your first library jobs, standing at the brink of something new and exciting and frightening.

Probably, you are in a completely different place, but wherever you are, I hope you’ll take some moments to care for yourself, to love and be loved, to feel gratitude and find joy, to recharge and risk productivity for the sake of sanity and being a whole person. Maybe you wanted so badly to deliver an insightful 600-900 word post that inspires and awes the library school community, all by your Noon on Thanksgiving deadline. But it’s 1:45 in the morning, and you realize 315 words will have to do. Forgive yourself and let go.  Trust that there will be more opportunities to inspire and awe, and you will do it. The most important thing I can do today, as a full-time graduate student and a new parent, is to turn toward the life part of my work-life balance and let that be enough.

How are you resting this holiday? Do you have self-care plans or dedicated ways of breaking away from the library school grind? Have you seen Mockingjay?