I had handed the pager over on Friday afternoon, and for the first time in what felt like months the weekend was genuinely mine. No laptop within arm's reach. No checking the phone every time it buzzed to confirm it was just a friend and not a SEV.
The strange thing about being off-call is how long it takes to actually relax into it. For most of Saturday I still had one ear cocked, the way you do. I made coffee and read on the sofa and kept noticing, with mild surprise, that nothing was on fire and it was not my problem if it were.
By Sunday I had let go properly. I cooked something that took the whole afternoon. I went for a long walk with no plan. I did not once think about disk pressure on a node I will never meet in person.
On-call is part of the job and I do not resent it, but the value of a real break only shows up by contrast. You forget how much low-level vigilance the pager extracts until a weekend arrives where you are allowed to put it all down. Back on the rota tomorrow, and oddly I do not mind. The quiet did its work.