A Bit Too Exhausted

I’ve been relatively quiet lately.

There’s something that happens to me when I spend a lot of time out with friends. I become mentally exhausted and really just too worn out to get any sort of outside work done. The past few weeks has been all about hanging out with friends, working, and even a weekend trip to Austin.

The thing is, no matter how social I seem to the outside, I’m an introvert at heart. I’m a person who needs quiet time to reflect on emotions, actions, choices…and I haven’t had any of that lately. Often times, I don’t even realize that I’ve missed out on that quiet recharging time until I get so restless and anxious that I feel irritated by everything going on around me.

Now it’s time for a simple confession: I haven’t written in almost two weeks. I haven’t even tried.

I know I shouldn’t have any excuses. For someone who wants to be a published author, I really should be more dedicated to writing and put everything else lower on my priority list. But sleep has been taking over. Depression has been trying to fight its way back into my life. Thoughts of future responsibilities have me wanting to run away and forget that I owe anybody anything.

If you don’t know me in person, I’ve found myself in a bit of a unique situation. I’ve written about my adoption multiple times, but what I haven’t really hit on is that my parents are older. Older than even some of my friends’ grandparents. While they are right now still in relatively good health (which I jokingly tell them they owe me for), the truth is that I don’t feel like I’ve gone through enough life stages to have parents who might need me to stick around for a more permanent style of care. I have so many things I want to do with my life, but I can’t justify many of them if anything were to happen to my mom or dad. There’s no way I can live halfway across the world and expect them to be perfectly content with some stranger giving them the full-time care they might need in 10 years.

There’s one thought that keeps running through my head: right now, being a grown up is the most undesirable and hardest thing I can think of. I want to be free. I want to run off and make all sorts of decisions just for selfish reasons. i suppose that’s the key though. The key to maturity is realizing how difficult growing up and taking on responsibilities can be, but fighting through it anyway and making the best of hard situations. It means putting others before yourself and maybe giving up a few of your own desires along the way.

Getting back to my original thoughts now. I’m finally getting some actual alone time in a few days that will last for over a week, and that thought is the golden thread in my life at the moment. I’ll have a house to myself, actual quiet with no distractions bustling around downstairs. I’ll finally get to do what I’ve been dreaming of for months: turning off the internet and my phone and just writing. Writing in whatever room of the house I choose, writing at whatever time of day I desire, writing for hours without being reminded that I need to eat something or sleep. I’m taking one entire day completely to myself. That kind of recharge is exactly what I need to function.

I’ve rambled a bit off topic, but it’s late and I’m experiencing one of those word-vomit moments, the kind of moment where you’re finally writing again and all of your thoughts just pour out of your mind and through your fingertips. I suppose that I just needed to get these thoughts out. There’s something oddly therapeutic about blogging for me. Journaling is still probably my favorite form of writing, but blogging gives my brain the opportunity to think that there’s somebody out there reading all of this nonsense and knowing exactly how I feel. So if that’s you, thank you. Even if you never comment, but just have read any line of anything I’ve ever written, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

listening to: Father John Misty