burnout recovery - reflections
(1) the feeling will pass
time does heal all wounds when you allow it to. i want to productive so i keep trying to be productive but that's what i want, not what i needed. what i needed was rest to get rid of the restlessness.
i've spent most of my life with the motto of "if you have a problem, you don't waste time lamenting about your problem, you go ahead and solve it" real go-getter shit. i was told that tantrums and emotions are always, always, second, and that the cause, the root, the problems—are always prioritized first.
i've always prioritized action over inaction, movement over stagnation, so scared of being a bystander, i become uneasy in silence and idle moments.
(2) relearning how to slow down
crashing is inevitable when you're going too fast. that's what generally happens when you learn to run before you walk. good part is if you know how to run then walking's easy. or it should be, at least on paper.
the crux of the matter is pacing. well, no shit sherlock, obviously. if stopping kills me, and i feel like i always have to be moving otherwise the thoughts™️ are gonna get me—then it's either i face these thoughts head on and subsequently send myself into an identity crisis and spiral, or, keep on compartamentalizing, but we unpack that shit one by one and make things easier for myself.
i'm not stopping, i'm slowing down. there is still progress, however small. the priority changes from quality to quantity, consistency over matter, lowering the bar, and moving the goal post closer instead of farther.
(3) changing environments is good
idk but no one told me the type of environment is also important. i spent most of my week in the province, away from the bustling loud sound-polluted city, and the clean air and sunlight healed me, actually. good food. sunsets. tree-lined streets. a supportive and loving community.
i realize now that the concert was probably a bad idea. i thought it'd be fun, and it was, but i needed rest and time alone. crowds and flashing lights may have been cathartic, but i needed slow mornings and sunsets.
(4) there is comfort in familiarity
for the first time in forever, i started drawing again. just little sketches on scratch paper. it wasn't good, it wasn't pretty, and it was nice knowing they didn't have to be. the act of observing something beautiful and letting my hand move to mimic that, instead of frantic writing trying to remember formulas and concepts and problem solving. that. that was nice.
for the first time in months, i wrote poetry again. the theme was something light, not dark. i didn't write to vent, i wrote to capture that homesick, heartaching feeling, that heavy human-ness reminding me why i'm alive.
for the first time in a while, i went biking. i wasn't pedaling fast to beat a record or time, i wasn't rushing to go somewhere. i let childhood memories guide me to places that fill me with nostalgia, longing, and motivation.
going back to a messy desk doesn't really spark motivation for me. so we clean up, dust off the shelves, rearrange books, putting away piles and piles of papers, we reorganize, shift things a little to the left, a little to the right, give more space so we set up an easier path for ourselves.
there's a destination, while the goal is to the get there eventually, the goal, for now, is to make it halfway first.
we tie our hair up, do our warm-ups, jump back in the game, and we keep winning.
whoever prayed on my downfall—pray harder, bitch!
