I struggle to rest, so much so that at my busiest season this past fall, I found myself having to schedule it in. My addiction to movement, to productivity, to busy, is something I’m still unpacking, but part of it is rooted in a desire to control. If I keep doing then I can change things, and sometimes that’s true, but right now it’s not.
Energetically, mentally, physically, and emotionally I was in the negative when I left New York City. I had spent the entire month of January at my wits end, but I powered through because I simply had no choice. Every week, every day was a new challenge that I needed to navigate and it was too much. I remember when I finally made it into the Uber to start my trip back home. I had just finished clearing out my apartment by myself and leaving the majority of my furniture, that I had worked so hard to purchase, on the street and in my apartment’s lobby. Something broke inside me watching the rain pour on all the objects that had made up my home life for the past nine months. I felt like I was literally throwing my life away, as if all my things meant nothing. In the back of the Uber I did my best to conceal the tears streaming down my face and quiet the accompanying noises. It was all so painful, so much so that I felt myself check out mentally. I don’t know what a psychologist would call this, but I can only describe it as a separation; the everyday me disappeared and the survival me took over, the one that’s only capable of doing the minimum.
When I first came home I took a page out of my little cousin’s book, and spent a day or so bed rotting; I had neither the energy nor the desire to do much more. In addition to just pure exhaustion my entire juju was off, it felt like everything that could go wrong did. The more I tried to fix and control, the more things went haywire, and at a certain point I just had to give it up. I made myself do things when required like interview for a job and put in a claim with UPS who broke my TV, but when nothing was needed of me I was on the couch watching The Real Housewives (it was the only show I had the mental capacity to process).
After surviving a hellish January, I told myself I would take February off, but then I was warned about the state of the job market and decided I would shorten my time off to two weeks. Two weeks of rest to replenish myself after three months of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion, was an impossible expectation. Of course I didn’t realize this until I tried to dive back into working. After my two weeks off ended, I met with a career coach and tried my hand at one of those AI jobs that require several training tests. I felt overwhelmed after my career coaching meeting and I literally could not compute the information needed to pass the second AI test. I found myself frustrated, hadn’t two weeks off been enough?
I think I have been confusing my ability to function with me being fine. However, whenever I really dial into my feelings, I feel like I’ve just been pushed into an abyss. The loss of my life in New York was abrupt and traumatizing. My new life in Chattanooga has been difficult to adjust to and I often find myself completely disoriented. Being home makes me feel like I just went back four years in time, when I last lived here full-time, and Chattanooga might as well be the polar opposite of New York City. On top of that I have lost the independence I had living alone and the ability to get myself around; without a car here I’m constantly dependent on my family for rides. I miss my apartment, I miss my things, I miss New York. I am grieving but it doesn’t feel like I’m supposed to, like somehow this grief isn’t worthy of processing time. I’ve been pushing myself to try and move on, but it’s an impossible task.
It took outside intervention for me to give myself more time - another week to slowly ease back into the rat race. I had a particularly enlightening conversation with a friend that helped me realize that just because I could keep going didn’t mean I should. She told me I had to stop before I could pivot and that stuck with me. I can’t recall many times in life, even when I was absolutely going through it, that I’ve ever just stopped. I never took a leave of absence from school or work to process, rest, or recover; I just kept going. A therapist once told me that I had high functioning depression, meaning I have the ability to compartmentalize my suffering and keep doing what is needed. In fact, during a period of depression in college I actually performed my best academically. I realize now, that as a Black woman, I had high functioning depression because I had no other option. To stop, to get consumed by my suffering or even just to fully process it, would require safety nets that have not always been in place for me, but I have one now.
The silver lining of losing my job, my apartment, all of my furniture, and moving back in with my mom, is that my stakes are extremely low. All the material shit is gone now, so I have no reason to hustle to keep it. I can stop, I can rest, and in fact, I must. I am still recovering from the exhaustion and trauma I’ve endured the past couple months. I can do things like paint my new room and concern myself with interior design, but I can’t handle anything too complex or demanding. I used to feel like superwoman, like I could do it all all the time, and right now I am completely disconnected from that part of me. My confidence has been shaken and I don’t have the energy to rebuild my life right now, and that’s okay. Everything in nature needs rest, including us humans; I am human and I can’t let the world keep robbing me of my humanity.
When you pull a muscle, you stop using it so that it can repair itself, and when you’re ready, you slowly put it to work again. That’s how I’m treating myself right now, like I’ve been injured and I’m still in recovery. There is work to be done, but I’m doing it slowly until I have the strength to go full speed again. For now, I’m just trying to focus on doing what I can: getting back into a consistent schedule, cutting down on drinking again, exercising, focusing on positive thoughts; I figure if I can reinstate my healthy habits then I can build everything else up from there. One day at a time.
If I had to name a goal right now it would be “attempt balance.” Work towards finding a job, but slowly; feel my emotions, but don’t wallow in them; stay in a positive mind frame, but not artificially so; rest, but don’t turn into a bum. Capitalism does require that I keep moving, but I don’t have to kill myself in the process. I have to find ways to make space for my grief, my exhaustion, and most importantly, my humanity.
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Yeah, I resonate with this a lot, felt a lot of these things when I had to limp back to my childhood home after failing to keep pace with the city I loved, and the exhaustion. It gets better, it sure does, but fuck if better don't take it's time getting over to you.
thanks for sitting with your discomfort and sharing your journey with us. hugs to you, hang in there!