The last week has been BRUTAL.

Not long ago, I was informed of a situation that would require me to be elsewhere for several weeks. This couldn’t have come at a worse time – I’m self-employed with nobody to cover me and it hit right at the start of prepping all the festive season posts for most of my social media clients. I wouldn’t be able to do much during the day and would physically be out of the house, so admin would have to be done extremely early in the morning, and then when I got home in the evening (as well as attempting to monitor a whole bunch of social media accounts if I had a few moments of free time during the day).

I had informed all of my clients and cancelled client events that I would be attending, and started to put things together, but then last week I was then told there was a possibility that the two weeks could potentially be four weeks. This would mean that I would have to prepare a month’s worth of work for every single client in advance and get it approved and scheduled, and I had 10 days in which to do it.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

I had a meltdown.

And then I had a few more meltdowns.

The enormity of everything was overwhelming, particularly when I took into account all of the further client events and awareness days that were coming up, and the fact that I would now need some clients to send me content extremely quickly (something that a few of them struggle with).

I did what I usually do. I made a list, prioritised that list, broke it down into smaller chunks and started at Task One.

Since last week, I’ve worked solidly every single day (including on the weekend) from early in the morning until late in the evening, and the stress has resulted in about 4-5 hours sleep a night. It also hasn’t helped that, coincidentally, I’ve had to fulfil several previously agreed commitments and be part of a number of lengthy meetings at the same time.

Additionally, there have been a number of challenging instances that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in both my personal and professional life that have required attention. Normally, these things wouldn’t affect me as much, but my mental state made everything seem so much worse.

It has felt like a black cloud pushing down on my shoulders, and my body has been reacting accordingly. I have been so tense, my muscles hurt. No matter how much water I have consumed, my headache won’t subside.

Thank goodness for The Bloke, who offered to help in any way he could, hugged me when I cried, sat and listened while I ranted and made dinner when he came home after work every night so I could carry on working.

And then, I received a call to say that I’m no longer needed.

I can only recall a few moments in my life where I have been as relieved as I felt at that moment.

Yes, I suppose there’s the notion that I had been put through all of that for nothing. But now, I feel FABULOUS. Well, not physically – I’m exhausted and expecting that the aches and pains will take a few days to subside – but all of a sudden, the world seems just that little bit better than it was this time yesterday.

And as I reflected, there is a very stark realisation that is hasn’t been for nothing. Going through the last week has 1. Put me WAY ahead in terms of my workload 2. Given a very clear picture of what needs to be done over the next month 3. Forced me to deal with a few things that I have been putting off, some of them for YEARS 4. Made me suddenly excited about all of the things that are coming up, that I had previously seen as merely something I had to do.

It has also given me a few things to think seriously about for the future.

But for tomorrow, I’m going to ease up, cook my favourite comfort food, borrow my friend’s dog and go for a very long walk.