Detox

I woke up Monday morning (my first day back in HK after a killer month of work that had me spending most of my time in Seoul and NY), took one look in the mirror and thought: "What the FUCK happened to my face?"

My face just...sagged. It looked so tired - all droopy and haggard. My eyes were lifeless. My skin was sallow and super dry. I looked freaking old - I basically aged 5 years in the last 2 weeks. I think I've said this before, but I have MAJOR age complex. I hate aging, but more than that, I hate LOOKING like I'm aging. So I did something I haven't done in ten years, something I usually find to be a huge waste of money and usually results in a migraine for me: I got a facial. And not just any facial - the craziest sounding facial I could find, which was called something like the Immortelle Divine Secret of Everlasting Youth and basically promised to restore youth to my face. 90 minutes later, I had a slight migraine headache (happens when people touch my face) and a shiny face from all the creams the aesthetician had lathered on, but my skin did look and feel better. And the next morning, I didn't have a "what the fuck happened to my face" reaction when I looked in the mirror (although I really do look at least a couple years older than I did just 3 months ago). But a facial only provides temporary relief - three days later, my skin is splotchy and dry again, my eyes sag and the texture of my skin just doesn't feel right.

And that's just my face.

My metabolism has slowed, I always feel tired, my hair is dull and dry and falling out in handfuls, I get random bouts of extreme nausea, and I don't know how to describe it except to say: I just don't feel good. Too much stress, too little sleep, too much crappy food, not enough exercise.

I've been taking measures to try to counteract all of the above, but there's only so much I can do. I try to go to yoga and walk to work everyday, but my job just doesn't permit me to have any spare time whatsoever. I try to eat a raw or vegan meal once a day, but going raw/vegan in HK is no easy feat - this is a land of dumplings, pork, noodles and rice. Despite my efforts to be healthier, I still experience annoying bouts of nausea and fatigue.

So, I decided to embark on a fairly extreme measure (in my view, since I don't generally believe in alternative medicine or kooky hippie stuff): I'm going to go on a detox/wellness vacation. For 5 days, I'll eat nothing but vegetables and juices and do nothing except yoga, get massages and....get colonics. I've been debating for days - I finally have a week-long vacation coming up and the normal version of myself would SO go on my annual homage to Barcelona, or go home to SF, or go somewhere new and adventurous. But that was in more normal times, with a more normal Deb.

I've never been this burnt out before. I hated Tokyo, and I worked a lot of hours there, but I still had time to take care of myself - I ran 5-6 times a week, I normally ate healthy, walked to/from work, had most weekends off, and took every single day of my 20 days of vacation and 18 holidays. My current situation is different. Simply said, I am totally, unequivocally burnt out. It's not just the hours. It's the stress. The crushing amounts and levels of stress. My boss is a total incompetent so I spend several hours each day covering for his ass, trying to pick up all the balls he's dropping. But when one of those balls drop, he passes the blame on me, even when it's his stupidity that caused it to drop and I've been trying to cover his ass. Despite his incompetence, he manages to bring in a surprising number of huge deals, and he promptly puts all of them on my plate. On most deals, I not only run the deal, I am the SOLE person on the deal. Times 3 or 4 deals. For those of you who know, that is an insane amount of responsibility and work. Not just insane - completely not doable. I honestly don't know how to describe the amount of responsibility and stress I feel everyday. For awhile, I just managed. I shouted and pleaded and threatened until he seconded a junior associate to help me out. Which made things infinitely better and more manageable - otherwise I would have reached my breaking point 2 months ago. But even with the help, ALL of the responsibility falls on me - and I'm just so burnt out.

So long story short, I'm going on a detox vacation, to purge all the toxins from my system, physically and emotionally. I just want some semblence of normal, healthy Deb back.