Burnt Out

 Have you ever climbed through a culvert? I used to, all the time with my little brother and our friends, as a kid on our little slice of northern Kentucky Americana. It seems it was always after a later summer thunderstorm when the air still felt warm and close, but if you stayed in the rain for too long the clamminess would sink into your bones. I can remember how slimy and just… mucky it was, from all the washed-out dead vegetation and slippery clay soil from the creeks. I also remember how, if I dared to take The Big One running under the main drive back to the trailer we lived in, there was just enough of a curve that once you were a few feet in, you couldn’t see where’d you come in from, really, and the end was just the littlest dot ahead. It spanned a curve in our drive that had been built wide for passing & for trailers. It gave the pipe an optical illusion that wouldn’t fool an adult for more than about 2 seconds but could ignite the mind of the small child I was, gave me a little thrill, and let me imagine I was raiding some lost tomb with Dr. Jones & Short Round like in our favorite movies.

I got stuck once, just for a moment – my shoe got caught in a crack in the rusted-out pipe, and I remember having almost to rip the sole off to get it back out (much to my mother’s consternation, as if we didn’t go through footwear fast enough free roaming in the woods as tweens) and almost panicking that I was actually stuck for a half a heartbeat before my foot came free. My little brother, as so many of them are at such a darling age, promptly ratted me out to Mom because we knew damn well we wasn’t supposed to be climbing through that thing because it was dangerous and I’d just have to figure out a way to glue my shoe back together and deal with it for the time being.

Oddly enough, even though at the time I wasn’t particularly scared and still don’t feel any different about it, that visual memory has stayed with me. The curve of the pipe, littered with debris from the last storm, a faint glow casting soft, otherworldly shadows behind me. Ahead, a soft glow, no bigger than my small fist, the rows and rows of ridges stretching on seemingly forever, as if I could crawl for hours and never be closer.

That image, that stretching out to forever in futility, that’s what burnout felt like to me. It would just keep going, and no matter how long and far I crawled, I could never reach that light. No matter how much I worked, how much I studied, I felt like I just couldn’t ever quite reach the goalpost, I needed to do more, more, more, always more. What I didn’t realize is that there is a significant difference between being driven and having a strong work ethic, and being an actual workaholic. I also didn’t realize that at some point, my body was going to revolt against the years of at times grueling schedule, but ooh boy did it ever.

A little less than 2 years ago, I got really sick for about 3 months, off and on – lots of yo-yoing in & out of high fever, multiple negative CV19 tests, inability to keep down more than maybe a liter of water and a few ounces of Pedia Lyte a day, for weeks. Just generally feeling like the worst hangover imaginable compounded on a really bad period layered over the stomach flu. Miserable, horrible, -19/10 Do Not Recommend. Even after I got over the initial sort of slow-motion “collapse” and I was back on my feet and functioning more or less like normal, there was a fall-out that my body was still suffering from. I couldn’t keep solid food down for another 8 months, relying on Ensure & Pedia Lyte to make sure my body didn’t shut down (again). My libido disappeared, and I mean poof gone. I started having panic attacks that weren’t being triggered by anything directly, and my insomnia & migraine were not being controlled by their normal medication even with increased dosages.

I was still working an average of 60 hours a week, each toxic in its way, and I still didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere or doing anything… meaningful, even if it was only meaningful to me. Sure, the money had improved, marginally, but I still clocked out every day feeling hollowed out and just angry, all the time.

Then, finally, there came the straw that broke the camel’s back. I took a deep breath, sent in a sick time email for the rest of the day, and waited for my husband to get home. (Bless him, I think I’d have keeled over of a heart attack by now if it weren’t for him <3)

Hubby: Fuck them, and fuck that. Quit.

Me: Don’t tell me that, in that headspace, because I will take my WFH equipment back literally tomorrow.

H: Do you need help packing or do you wanna get baked out of your brain and pack it all up tomorrow?

Swoon. Sometimes he knows just exactly what to say.

So I got baked, maybe not entirely out of my brain, and the next day we packed up my equipment and I sent in my resignation email. We are fortunate enough that for the time being, I don’t necessarily have to work so I actually have legitimate free time.

It’s a new concept for me, and that’s not an exaggeration.

It means I can finally start writing what I want to write, instead of an endless list of assignments for class. I can read normal interesting books again, instead of textbooks and academic papers (for assignments that don’t interest me in the first place). I can craft, and spend time with my menagerie, and take a fucking bubble bath without constantly checking my watch to make sure I’m not cutting into my sleep time too much. I’m finally starting to sleep without waking up every 2 hours!!

The past couple of months have been a strange adjustment period for me, and it’s been sort of like a decompression. But I feel like I’m finally reaching that soft glow of light that seemed so far away, and it feels warm and inviting, and a little bit like hope.