How I Am Coping As Exhaustion Finishes Me.

Hi Everyone,

I know I’ve been quieter for the past few weeks, and that is because I am quite honestly exhausted. I started out this year by making a publishing schedule, and I had some great ideas planned for Women’s History month.

Then a few weeks ago, I wrote a note about how I need a break from in-depth Substack posts because I am bogged down by insomnia, and my “writing” plate is full with the anthology, and another large creative project.

But I realize, it’s more than that.

Between:

• Insomnia that leads me to wake up at 5am sharp with my internal battery at a consistent average of 55% and bonus: wondering if lack of sleep is slowly manifesting a painful terminal illness where I will have to spend long stretches in the hospital alone with no visitors and/or endure said terminal illness alone in my apartment without any aid.

• Loneliness, Isolation, and lack of community (because we as a culture have insisted that all the social events must die in the winter along with the plants, except for the few events where everyone shows up with their established friends and family group, leaving community-seekers to die in the cold)

• Tons of little (invisible and old) dance injuries that have reared their ugly head to dampen my exciting athletic goals for this winter like getting my splits back.

• Gray skies. Yes, I feel OPPRESSED by the frequency of gray skies we have.

• Dirty piles of snow everywhere

• Continuous Work commitments

• No cats

Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks in February—perhaps as a cumulative effect—and I am very sad, tired, and over it.

Despite my best efforts to stay afloat, I feel like absolute shit. I don’t feel like shit every day, but enough days of the week that it matters. I do not even want to look closely in the mirror most days, because I don’t want to notice my eyes. I haven’t cried about it yet but maybe it’s coming.

The wins I’ve made recently (which there have been many) have felt nice—and I will be sharing them soon—but I think I have been too underwater by the combination of these aforementioned things to celebrate them as fully as I’d like.

Instead I spend most of my time just trying to drag myself around to do self-care, tend to responsibilities, and plan for my future.

It does help. And I have come so, so far. And I give thanks for everything I have.

But I am tired. Not just physically, but emotionally.

Deep down I believe things will lighten up, but I am so heartbroken that I find myself jaded by the thought of summer.

I crave sustainable wellness, not just another season.

So I just want to be honest about my capacity—I have had to pull away from Substack because I am working on other big things—the fruits of which I will be sharing soon—and also because-every other day, despite my efforts, I wake up feeling like a partially charged battery in a life that requires my full power.

The only thing that has been bringing me comfort, ironically, are (of course, cat videos) and AI-animated African folktales. It might sound crazy, but I’ve been really into those folktales, despite turning my nose up at first.

I wrote a whole post about it, but I haven’t published it because it felt too awkward and left-field. However, in light of sharing this post, perhaps I will go out on a limb and publish a post on my favorite comfort videos.

P.S. thank you to my paid subscribers who continue to support me! I intentionally avoid looking at my metrics because it’s emotionally distracting, but I accidentally opened my dashboard today and noticed that I haven’t had the mass-unsubscribe that I had been imagining 🥲

Thanks for your support. 🌺