I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around some of the perks of my life. A person like me is meant to be jetting off to distant lands and having experiences. Instead, I feel trapped by the circumstances of my family and friends. What's the point of having unlimited PTO if my squad is strapped for cash and time? Yes I have taken advantage of solo travel now and then, but I'm over it now, I want my loved ones with me. hashtag- firstworldproblems I know, but that's part of the survivor guilt.
It's crazy too that when my employer switched to unlimited PTO, my mind didn't even grasp what the change meant. I thought they were making it more restrictive, like my last job. I couldn't even wrap my mind around it. I feel like I'm going crazy, I put flights on hold to Paris and cancel them. I feel so much guilt and resentment that there's a privileged group (not necessarily with money) that gets to freely travel without a pang of conscience, and I'm stuck here feeling guilty over taking even an ounce of vacation, or doing anything for myself, really.
How many of us, when we were little, were told by our parents to clean our plate, because there are starving children in xyz-country who didn't have anything? Of course I felt sorry about that, but if I had gut issues that kept me from eating, forcing myself to eat and making myself sick did not solve the problem of the starving children. It only put a burden on me that made me sicker. Believe me, I do not lose sight of the inequities. I'm conscious of the people who made my clothes and my footprint in the world. Yes, there are people in the world who never get a break, but why can't I shake the feeling that I don't deserve one, just because it's in my power to take it?
Have you struggled with feeling like this? I believe I saw on social media that what I need is called mental rest. Maybe even taking a vacation won't fix it
