“I’m taking a me-day,” I proudly informed my eighth grade peers as we set our trays down at our usual lunch table. The idea of not exercising the newfound freedom to stay afterschool was unheard of, but I remained adamant. That day, I was going to go home straight after school and do my own thing.
My me-day was a success: while my friends did whatever it is that eighth graders do when hanging out afterschool, I sat in my living room reading, journaling and feeling no guilt at all. I turned off my phone, ignored MSN (remember those days?) and very easily and recklessly cut off most human contact.
It was bliss.
Given the success of my first me-day and my growing introversion, I’ve become a big fan of me-days and sometimes wish they could happen everyday. I came to Northwestern expecting that the quarter system struggle, on-campus activities and organization commitments would make personal time difficult to find. However, I soon realized not having enough time was far from the problem.
Instead, I found that I wasn’t bad at balancing procrastination with time-management but that I was awful at dealing with the new-found guilt that came with spending free time on myself. The guiltless me-days were a thing of the past and the self-reproach I felt after spending my time writing in my journal for the first time in a month made it difficult to enjoy the time or want to use it on myself ever again.
This guilt, in part, stems from the fact that being alone in your room mere feet away from the rest of your friends is probably too close for comfort. When in those situations, I definitely feel that my friends are more acutely aware of my absence than if I'm in another building. My closed door, I feel, is a reminder to everyone outside that I'm choosing to do something by myself over participating in cards night or a White Collar marathon.
The reverse is true as well: Thanks to the paper-thin walls of our sanctuaries, the vulgarities and smack talk characteristic of Monopoly Deal or White Collar theme music can be heard even though we opted out of the party. Obviously, we can drown out the sounds with music, but that they are there and we can almost imagine them happening in real time doesn’t help ease the guilt.
The pressure to be social, especially when living with friends, is real, but I don’t think we’d have felt as bad giving up social opportunities to sleep or study. The tradeoff between social life, sleep and grades has long been outlined in the "holy trinity" of college in which students can choose two of the three. That personal time isn’t one of the options is indicative of how lowly we prioritize it and explains why it’s difficult to spend time on it.
The trinity needs to be revamped to include personal time. We shouldn’t have to feel guilty for taking a time-out and writing something that isn’t a 15-page research paper, reading something that didn’t come from Quartet or simply doing nothing. This time is important as it lets us take a step back from Northwestern grind. Without me-days, Northwestern can easily feel like a non-stop roller coaster ride hurtling through friends, classes, activities, parties and more at lightning pace.
Social psychology stresses that no man is an island, and I firmly believe that friends will make and contribute to my most poignant memories of college. But instead of constantly jumping in and out of moments, I want to take time out to record, reflect and regroup, to really remember and process everything that’s happened.
After a winter break that hardly aligned with any other schools’ and a lot of inadvertent but much-appreciated me-days, I decided to ignore the conventional trinity and include personal time in my triangle-turned-square of priorities. This introspection coincided well with the New Year: I resolved to not sleep in on Sundays and spend that time by myself at a cafe far away from people and triggers for a guilty conscience.