I seem to have fallen out of the habit of writing a little something for the blog every two-ish months and interestingly, I’ve been feeling guilty about it. That, in turn, probably exacerbated my not wanting to write anything new, as it ended up being something else on my to-do list, waiting to be taken care of.
These days, everything feels like a demand to me and therefore requires a lot of energy – which I don’t have.
Getting up in the morning has been consistently hard for months now, I never seem to get enough sleep and I start all of my days feeling tired. I’ve barely been making it through working days and each of the past Friday nights, I felt so depleted that I thought I was on the verge of getting the flu (which I wasn’t).
To sum up: I’m utterly exhausted.
The past couple of months I’ve been seeking some answers with the help of a professional about who I am, or rather why I am facing the challenges that I have been writing about on here (in a veiled way though, as some experiences are way too personal to be shared so publicly). This process is still ongoing and therefore has me suspended in a sort of limbo, which most definitely adds to my exhaustion.
What all of this means for my personal life is that it barely deserves the title. In order to recharge enough to be able to go to work and keep myself alive, I’ve completely cut every non-necessary activity out of my life. I’m aware that this sounds a bit sad and I’m sure some people will feel sorry for me when reading it.
Would I like to have more energy? Yes!
Does my current state force me to prioritise myself and choose what will be good for me (outside of work, obviously*)? Also, yes! It requires me to be selfish and set boundaries, which is definitely interesting, as I never used to be one to say no very often, when asked to hang out.
My ongoing exhaustion makes me ask myself a lot of questions, such as would this bring me joy?, will I benefit from this or will it be more enjoyable to stay home and recharge? and would I be okay with missing out on this event? And a lot of the time, it turns out I’m fine with missing out. Have I been cured of FOMO?! I wouldn’t go that far, as I’ve recently found myself experiencing some mild vacation FOMO, which could however also stem from my desire to just leave everything behind and be free of all kinds of demands – which I most likely never would be, even in another country.
I’ve also been doing some cool things though. Mostly things I remember enjoying when I was younger, so I tried to rekindle that enjoyment. Turns out, it was a lot of fun! I rewatched a bunch of – some would say embarrassing, but I don’t really care – movies from my past, and I was influenced into reading Harry Potter fan fiction. This in particular has been the most enjoyable, and I spent hours reading, and quite obsessively so. This reminded me of when I was a kid: I was often completely engulfed in the worlds of my favourite series (fun fact: a lot of them were horse-related stories), unable to put the book down. I haven’t been reading for fun (I do a lot of serious reading at work) in such a focused way until recently and I was looking forward to getting back to the story so much that I even spent a few of my lunch breaks reading. It’s been a nice refuge from my very uneventful life, and the best part is that I can dive into the story even in my low-energy state. Oftentimes I’m not able to do much after work, but this I can always manage.
The unexpected revival of my reading hyperfixation inspired me to think about what else I enjoyed but stopped doing eventually because it wasn’t cool or no one else was doing it, and it made me realise that a lot of my growing up entailed giving up on things that brought me joy because they were deemed childish and, incidentally, “I’d never find a husband” that way – or so I was told. (Turns out, finding a husband never made it onto my list of priorities in life 😎.)
So, in the end, being a depleted blob of a person most of the time led me to finding out more about myself – which is kind of cool.
In my current tired state, I’m usually saturated in terms of social interactions when the working day is over (and often unfortunately even before it is)**, so I’ve been very adamant about not planning any meet-ups with friends after work, and I also rarely have done so at weekends, because making plans and having to stick to them also, regrettably, feels like a demand at the moment.
Additionally, I never know how I’ll be feeling at the time of the planned social interaction, so I’ve entirely shied away from putting that type of pressure on myself. I’m hoping that, once my exhaustion subsides – fingers crossed that my summer vacation will eventually do the trick! -, I’ll be able to slowly get back to having the fraction of a social life that other people have.
When I think about how little I’m able to do these days, I sometimes find myself missing the year 2019, which was a very exciting one for me. I constantly had the most entertaining stories to tell, and my weekends were packed with social activities. Does anyone else feel this way about 2019, by the way? I wonder if the fact that it was the last pre-pandemic year makes it feel all the more important – maybe more so than it deserves. Because on top of all the fun things that happened in 2019, it was probably one of the more anxious years of my life, given that I was constantly going above and beyond my limits. I relied on alcohol to keep me afloat and I felt lonely a lot, even though I spent far more time in the company of people than I do now. I remind myself of this whenever I notice that I’m longing for past times. It wasn’t all better then, I was just younger and didn’t know myself as well as I do now.
So, my current mission is to get to know myself even better and do more things that bring me joy, regardless of what other people might think of that. And in doing so, I’m hoping that I will once again become more me, more like the little girl I used to be before the world told her how to be.
And the most important mission will continue to be getting lots of rest and regaining energy as much as I need to, without feeling guilty – this will probably be the bigger challenge.
That’s it for my little life update, see you back here in two (or three, or four…) months! 🧡
* If I had the choice, work would be the first thing to go out the window, even though I really like my place of work and the people I share it with.
** This has nothing to do with my coworkers and I’m sure they know that I appreciate them – I just wanted to make this 100% clear.
Carrot Days 