I’m not quite myself
29th May, 2022 - Blog
If you’re new here, I should warn you that this is one of my “personal” blog posts, because I’ve always advocated that mental health is something that should be discussed as openly as people can.
Between life (we now have a three-year-old!), work, and everything in between, I’ve been slacking on blogging. To be honest, I’ve just not had the time, and I’ve not had the passion – this has been such an outlet for so long, but I just couldn’t find the energy.
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The truth is that I’m not quite myself.
Over the last few months I’ve worked 12 – 15 hour days between my day job and freelance. I’ve submitted pitch emails at 2 AM and fired off invoices at 5 AM. I spent a depressingly large chunk of my son’s first ever holiday, hunched over a laptop once he’d gone to bed and working on projects.
I love what I do, and I’m blessed to be able to do it, but I felt like I took so much on because I had to; the rising cost of living, an expensive mortgage, and plenty of bills, big and small, to pay alongside things like childcare.
I’ve taken the last few days off from freelance projects and in many ways it’s been nice – we had family over and I wasn’t panicking about deadlines for a whole weekend.
On the other, it kind of highlighted how hollowed out I feel, and how lonely I’ve become. I’ve barely seen anyone in weeks, and I just feel so distant from everyone; my friends, my family.
I also had this weird itch in the back of my mind whenever I’ve been relaxing like “you should be doing more”.
I’ve always felt like I was good at hitting a work/life balance but maybe I’m not as good at it as I thought. I’m close to burning out, but I keep lighting more fires to juggle. I’m sure there’s a deeper discussion about my perceived value versus my contribution to society and how the latter affects the former, but for now that’s a talk for me internally.
In any case, I’m fine – I’m well, and I’m just about as stable as anyone can be given the state of the world right now. As I say, I’m just not quite myself.
Peace,
L
