Have you ever been tired in a way you can’t justify? Not burned out from overworking, not grieving something specific, just worn down by the weight of waiting for things to get better. That’s where I am right now.
And I don’t really know what to do with that.
A lot of things aren’t going my way right now. Personally. Professionally. Nothing catastrophic, nothing I can point to and say that, that’s the thing that broke me. Just a quiet accumulation of things not clicking, not working, not being what I hoped they’d be. And I know, I know, that this is just life. That it’s temporary. That it will make sense someday. I know all the things you’re supposed to know.
Knowing doesn’t help.The frustrating part isn’t even the circumstances. It’s that I can feel myself wanting better, and I can’t switch that wanting off. Wanting better things is so deeply human that I can’t be angry at myself for it. But it’s also the thing that makes the gap between where I am and where I hoped to be feel like something I have to live inside of, every single day.
So I’m frustrated. And then I’m frustrated at myself for being frustrated. Because it’s not that serious. People have it worse. My struggles are minor, objectively. I have no right to feel this heavy.But here’s the thing I keep circling back to: does the size of a problem determine whether you’re allowed to feel it? If it’s technically minor but it’s sitting on my chest, is it still minor? I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know. But I’m tired of invalidating my own feelings because someone somewhere has it harder. That logic never ends. There will always be someone who has it harder.
People tell me to share. To talk about it. And I understand why they say that, I do. But what would sharing actually do? The people who love me would worry. They’d want to fix it. And they can’t fix it. Nobody can fix it. Time will fix it, or it won’t, but either way it will run its own course independent of how many conversations I have about it.
So I hold it. And holding it is suffocating. But sharing it feels pointless. And I’m stuck somewhere between those two bad options, not choosing either of them.
I’ve tried distracting myself. It works for about forty minutes (long enough to get invested in Person of Interest and briefly forget) and then the feeling comes back, slightly more annoyed that I tried to dodge it. I’ve tried sitting with it, accepting it, feeling my feelings the way everyone recommends. That doesn’t work either. The feelings don’t leave just because you acknowledge them. They just stay, acknowledged.
I’m tired of being tired. That’s the truest thing I can say right now. Not tired in a dramatic way. Just worn down by the repetition of waking up, trying, falling a little short, going to sleep, and doing it again. The waiting. The not knowing when the waiting ends.
And I keep going anyway. Not because I’m strong. Not because I believe in myself in some deep, motivational-poster kind of way. Not because I’ve found a reason that makes it all make sense.I keep going because I don’t know what else to do.
There’s no plan B. There’s no exit that looks better than just continuing. Stopping isn’t really an option, not because someone told me it isn’t, but because when I actually look at it, continuing is the only door in the room. So I walk through it. Every day. Not with hope exactly, but not without it either. Somewhere in the in-between.
I don’t have an ending for this. I’m still in it. Maybe it gets better next week, maybe next month, maybe I’ll read this a year from now and feel embarrassed by how seriously I took something so small. Maybe I’ll read it and recognise exactly where I was and feel something like tenderness for myself.
I don’t know. That’s kind of the whole point.
For now, I’m just here. Tired, trying, carrying it quietly. Going, because that’s what’s left.
