I mentioned in my Life Lately post this week that I’ve felt busier lately than I have in… probably the past year and a half. It’s honestly been a bit of a struggle – on one hand, I’m really excited to have things to do (safely), and to see people that I hadn’t seen in months and months. But on the other hand, everything just feels like a LOT right now, and it’s hard to add more plans to everything already going on, even if they’re things that I want to be doing.

What We’ve Been Dealing With

Grace wrote a post this week about feeling like she’s lacking stamina in her life, and the number of people in the comments who shared that they were feeling the same just proves that everyone is feeling overwhelmed in a lot of ways. I made this comment on her post, but it’s important enough that I want to reiterate it here – we’re all dealing with so much on a daily basis. There’s not only the ongoing pandemic, but there’s personal life changes, political upheaval, mask and vaccine debates, and a new social (in)justice issue seemingly every week. There is just so much heavy stuff going on all the time, and yet we’re expected to just keep living and keep moving on. It’s inevitable that all of these chronic stressors are going to have an impact on us – mentally, emotionally, and physically.

And then, rather than taking time to really deal with everything that’s going on, as a society we just… keep moving forward. There’s such a push right now to return to some form of normalcy, or as close to normal as we can. It seems like more and more in-person events are happening. And while I’m very much looking forward to the end of the pandemic, I don’t know that we’ve really dealt with the last year and a half. We’re trying so hard to move on that we haven’t acknowledged the very real affect it’s had on us. I know that personally, I’ve had to come to terms with friendships changing, with feeling like my life as a disabled woman wasn’t valued, with my own changing priorities and values. It takes time to deal with all of that – it’s a lot!

How I’m Feeling Now

I think it’s all been catching up to me in a very real way. I’m trying to deal with all of the stressors that I talked about, plus a rapidly-filling calendar, and a feeling that I need to do things “while I still can,” because once the weather turns, I’m not sure what will be safe for me. And I’m not sure I’m dealing all that well! I feel exhausted and unmotivated and overwhelmed a lot of the time. A few weekends ago I had two events in one day, and basically felt like I needed to take the next day to recover. I’m used to having a pretty packed calendar, but now the thought of having multiple events, even spread across a weekend, feels like a lot.

I’m finding it really hard to get motivated, too. I am relying more and more on lists to make sure that things get done; I’m finding myself procrastinating even more than usual (which is saying something). I’ll find myself pushing off replying to an e-mail until tomorrow… and then the next day, and then the next. And none of these tasks are huge, it just feels daunting to even get started. I used to pride myself on getting my inbox to zero unread e-mails, and now I cringe when I look at the number of unreads climbing higher and higher.

Moving Forward

Basically, I’m feeling burnt out, but it’s hard to feel like there’s any real relief in sight when the future looks pretty unchanging from the present. I think the only thing I can keep doing is to keep reminding myself that we’re ALL dealing with a lot right now. So if anyone else is feeling like this too… know you’re not alone. There’s comfort in community.