burnout.

When you have a heightened sense of self-awareness, you can’t help but notice the cards fall as you stumble. The burnout is coming, and I give myself perhaps four to six weeks before it hits again. I am hoping that by then, I will be halfway across the world, nursing myself somewhat back together again with family and a change of scenery. Perhaps it is a naïve outlook, but much of my life has always been turning towards the sun as it shines, and counting gratitude as a way of a quiet endurance.

I am much to blame for this, and maybe it is why I find myself falling into the same routines that I did three years ago. The pandemic for me perhaps was the healthiest my mind has been, and talking to a colleague it may be because physically and emotionally, I did not let myself get run down in the same way that I used to. It always starts small. The migraines and mood swings, the lack of stability in sleep patterns. The reverse bedtime procrastination. Before I know it, the anxiety will kick in, and the irritability, the restlessness that tags at my compulsions.

I have a laundry list of personal items that I have fallen behind again in, and work along with other personal and professional commitments do not help the process. Yet I am learning to be kind with myself as I have often told others to be. I am not distinguished by action, or inaction, but by a courage to be and to live. It is hard to not let the waves hit with growing intensity, but I have been here before. I have learned to navigate spaces such as this. I have grown accustomed to learning how to lay it all down.

In a weird way perhaps, the most exciting thing about this new round of burnout perhaps is the fact that I am carrying less than I used to and I am learning to be more intentional than I ever have been this time around. That with the courage of choosing to grow my current no to a future yes, and learning to let go the spaces I no longer want or wish to inhabit post pandemic, I take courage in my faith that has sustained me throughout my trials, to mitigate my ability to carry things without a capacity that I once did and had.

This season was signposted for me months ago, and everything since then while unexpected, has been far from surprising. The pressing continues, but I remain faithful in courage, that this season and space will find me pouring good wine. As I remind myself to put one foot before the other, I am reminded by the collective faith of community, that dragged me through the first time, and will continue to drag me through the second. Life goes on and endures. How we finish is dictated by the spaces we allow not to define us, but to help guide us.