Tattooed, Tested, and Took an actual vacation.

PRSL
Jul 23
5 min read

Sometimes self-care looks like rest. Other times, it looks like a riot.This week, it was both. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I gave myself permission to actually unplug. Not a “catching up on work while in a line” break. Not a “sure, I’ll just answer this one message real quick” kind of fake rest. I mean a real, full-stop, unapologetic boundary. A hard line drawn in permanent marker. The kind of break where I silenced the guilt (the best I could), shut down the people-pleasing reflex, and reminded myself: I’m allowed to exist outside of being useful.

It was hard.

It was SO VERY HARD.

Because we live in a world where I am always, always within reach. Email. Text. DMs. Comments. Group chats. Even with my away message up and a clear ask for space, things still came in—escalations, questions, "quick favors,” and a handful of folks who either forgot or ignored my plea. It’s not their fault, really. We’ve all been conditioned to treat access like a right, not a privilege.

But it reminded me: I’m wildly accessible—too accessible. And I have to start untangling that. I love what we do with Punk Rock Saves Lives. I love the fact that we’re literally saving lives, showing up for strangers, and creating space for healing and hope in the most unexpected places. That’s never the problem.

The problem is: sometimes the work gets so big that I start to shrink. I don't have time for hobbies. I don't paint anymore. I barely read. I am constantly revolving around the work. The fact that I took three “work days” and two “weekend days” and still felt like I was asking for too much? That’s a problem. That’s what happens when the lines between work and life, passion and pressure, blur so badly you forget you’re allowed to rest. When your out-of-office message feels like a confession. When stepping away feels like betrayal instead of basic human need.

So I said no. No to the emails. No to the nonstop reachability. No to carrying the weight of every crisis and question like it’s mine to fix. I stepped away from the inboxes.

And in that silence—in that refusal to explain or apologize—something powerful happened.

I started to feel myself return.Not the burnt-out, paper-thin version that’s been running on fumes for months.The real me.The one who laughs louder. Thinks more clearly. Feels things without immediately filing them into a to-do list. I felt the edges of myself reappear—the parts that get blurry when I’m always “on,” always reachable, always responsible.

That’s the truth about boundaries: they’re not about keeping people out.They’re about keeping you intact. And this week, I needed to be whole way more than I needed to be helpful. So once I finally let myself disconnect from the grind, I leaned hard into what fills me back up. Not sleep (though I got some of that, too)—but art. Big, bold, weird, moving, soul-rearranging art.

We saw Moulin Rouge, Death Becomes Her, and John Proctor is the Villain. The first two brought me a kind of light I didn’t realize I was so desperate to feel again. That spark. That magic. That theatre kid electricity that still lives deep in my bones—backed by a degree, sure, but more importantly, by years of using theatre as my escape and safe place.

Theatre has always been where I run when the world feels way TOO LOUD. It is where I learned to breathe and be swept in another story. It is where I could openly feel with hundred of strangers. I always feel so much AT HOME at a show. The funny part about theatre - I left the theatre world a long time ago so I could have work/life balance. I now run to theatre to achieve that same thing.

But it was John Proctor is the Villain that HIT ME—left me crying in my seat while also filling me with a deep, burning rage. The kind of rage that sticks in your throat because you know it’s real. Because this play, set in 2018 and unpacking a story from 1692, is still so painfully, infuriatingly relevant.

How is it that centuries later, we’re still navigating the same bullshit? Still asking women and girls to shrink themselves, to forgive, to carry the shame while flawed men get redemption arcs and standing ovations?

This play doesn’t just call it out—it tears it down. And it lit something in me that I didn’t know needed reigniting.

I cannot urge you enough—go seek out this story. Let it move you. Let it shake something loose. Let yourself scream through the frustration of what is still happening to this very day. Let yourself feel the fire of it. Let yourself dance in the woods. Let yourself rage.Let yourself release.

Because we’re carrying so much. This world is heavy. The systems are still broken. And as I said above—we are too accessible. Constantly plugged in. Constantly performing. Constantly expected to carry it all with a smile.

This play is permission to drop the weight. To feel it. To yell back and reclaim your voice, your story, your space.

That energy carried with me into our visit to the Museum of Sex. And in full transparency—this isn’t my first time there. It’s a stop I’ve made many times, and for good reason. In a world where we still have to scream “My body, my choice,” a space that unapologetically celebrates bodies, pleasure, and sexual freedom feels radical. Feels necessary.

Just like John Proctor is the Villain, the museum asks: Who gets to tell your story? Who gets to decide what’s acceptable, appropriate, powerful, or sacred?

And the answer should always be: you.

This trip wasn’t just a vacation. It was a reawakening. A reminder that rest isn’t weakness. That reclaiming your time, your body, your voice - that’s punk rock. That art, when it’s honest, bold, and unflinching, can rip you open and stitch you back together all in one breath.

So yeah....I took the break. I drew the line. I got to be - ME.

And now?I’m back. A little more whole. A lot more grounded.And so ready to raise some hell with empathy, fire, and glitter.

So. Much. Glitter.

xoxo,

Tina

And… while I have you—since you’re still here listening to me ramble about the life-altering power of theatre—let me throw one more into the ring.

The musical SIX.... that one with the glitter and the pop anthems and the royal sass? It’s doing the same radical work in a totally different way.

It takes the tired, over-told story of Henry VIII and flips it on its head. Instead of centering him again.... it hands the mic to the women. The six queens who were reduced to rhymes and punchlines in history books. It lets them tell their own stories, in their own voices, with rage, wit, heartbreak, and pride. It says: We were more than how we died. We were more than who we married. We were more than footnotes in a man’s legacy.

As a person who has been told that I am only a person because of a male in my life - I have always felt it so hard. I listen to the songs a lot to be honest.