Every Wednesday I send out a top shelf SOLOpreneur-approved newsletter that educates + entertains with shamefully honest confessions, LOL analogies, and color-coded knowledge bombs designed to help you turn all that YOU are, all that YOU know, and all that YOU have to share into a business brand YOU + YOUR dream clients are drunk in love with!
the anti-time-off request
|
It’s that time of the year, again.The festive season when we don’t take the time we need off and then wonder why we’re mentally sucking our thumbs in the fetal position by mid-January – if we don’t count the November exhaustion that we push waaaaay down and mask with scented candles. Wow. It sounded less Grinchy in my head. I love the holiday season, but it wasn’t always that way. Growing up, holidays were a reminder of how broken + toxic my family was, so as an adult, I swore them off and locked myself away in solitude until they were over. Now that I’m free from that family and have my son + gloriously loving chosen family, I want to savor every moment. We’ve started all these new traditions over the last few years.🥰 Like me wearing this adorable hand-knitted elf cardigan my son fell in love with for an entire week… you’ll have to wait for that week to get a peek. 🧩 Doing a puzzle on Thanksgiving while we snack on a bottomless charcuterie board all day. We found a snowman shaped one at the library to do this year. We want to crack it open so badly. 🎤 Interviewing each other about our year… we have a list of 25 questions, and we spend the afternoon giggling over everything that happened. 🐈⬛ Buying ONE new ornament from Etsy that represents a big part of our year. I asked my boy what he thought we should get this year, and he immediately said, “Something with a sweet black cat.” 🥰 We lost our 19 year old fur baby in February, and we loved him like he was a human. 🚂 Taking the latest Polar Express steam train ride in our jammies, and then hitting up the drive through lights display after that. 🥳 Getting stupid wasted with friends at a white elephant gift exchange. One year, we had to stay the night… even our DD got roped into shots. There are so many memories + moments to be made. There is so much rest to be had. There are so many fucks to spend frivolously. There is so much peace to experience. I’ve made the cataclysmic decision to take THREE WEEKS off in December/January.*She says with sarcasm foaming from her mouth.* Yup, 21 whole sleeps. Technically, it’s 24 when you tack on the 3-day weekend before my first official week off. It’s part of my new process (as my gurl Kristie Alers put it). We were DMing back + forth yesterday on Substack (while I was avoiding writing this email), and I asked her to talk me off the “this is stupid; no one cares” ledge.
Me: Would talking about how hard it is to allow myself to take off the three weeks I desperately want to take off in December/Jan be something you’d want to read about? Her:
Where’s the UNSUBSCRIBE button? Rest is not a luxury for me!I know deep in my marrow that I need this downtime to rest, recharge, and regroup, so I can fuck 2025 in the mouth!! (That’s my bestie + I’s go-to motivational line. 🤣 Love you, Rach! 🫶) I need time to just be. We all do. Part of this hot dog cart-sized fearless era is making peace with the HUMAN NEEDS we have – rest, connection, wholeness. This is the figurative line in our lives + businesses where we can point and say, “This was when I started putting my health + happiness first.” This is part of how we want to be paid as solopreneurs, couples, and families in business – the time to rest when it’s needed, not earned. It’s not easy dropping this “anti-time-off request” in your inbox.It triggers all the “more, more, MORE” indoctrination still lingering inside of me, but it’s time for us to openly talk about this stuff. Squeezing life into the moments we steal between work to-do’s is not the path to success – that’s just a lie the capitalist system wants us to believe. Just look at our track records. How many festive seasons have we slaved our way through + what did all that slaving get us? Beyond still emotionally sucking our thumb in the fetal position on Valentine's Day, I’m coming up blank. We have to be brave + live out these cart-sized choices right now. Take the time off you’re so desperately craving. Take the time off when you can actually enjoy it! When you can make the memories… get the rest… fling your fucks around… and savor the peace. I dare YOU. I have 6-weeks to make peace with this “cataclysmic” decision because it’s happening! Dec. 13th - Jan. 5th… I will be living my beautiful, full life, not available to anyone online. This is ME in my hot dog-shaped pasties + mustard bikini saying, “I’m putting my health + happiness first.” To making the choices you keep telling yourself will be ok “when…” – they’re not only ok, NOW, but they’re part of how they become your reality FOREVER, Dre ‘Not Fuckin’ Around About Her Rest’ Beltrami P.S. You have one more week to snag the Newsletters With Personality Scavenger Hunt before it goes behind my hot dog ropes, reserved for the kindreds who commissioned it with their monthly + yearly community subscriptions. It’s my way of saying THANK YOU for giving me such a safe space to figure out that what I’ve been fighting for so long is hot dog cart aspirations. Go download it, and then, fill out your anti-time off request! 🌭🫶 |
🥃 A Weekly Dose of Dre Keeps The Gurus Away
Every Wednesday I send out a top shelf SOLOpreneur-approved newsletter that educates + entertains with shamefully honest confessions, LOL analogies, and color-coded knowledge bombs designed to help you turn all that YOU are, all that YOU know, and all that YOU have to share into a business brand YOU + YOUR dream clients are drunk in love with!