22 Oct 2022

Weather-beaten

Filed under: life

(Updated: 15th Sep 2025)

Burnout has been on the tip of our tongues for god knows how long. But today, I wondered if that was the right word to describe how I’ve been feeling lately and for a while. Burnout is a “state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress” according to HelpGuide and probably any qualified professional. The goal is to address it and regain a balance. But what about the long-term effects of that burnout?

If you burn anything, it leaves a scar or some visual reminder of its harm.

And so I realised perhaps I was just… weather-beaten.

Weather-beaten adds variability—it might be a constant drizzle or a torrential downpour with harsh winds. And who knows how much it’d taken to truly knock something down or erode it completely. The weather can also change for the better. A burn is a burn and recovery is never truly the same as before.

After days, weeks, months, and years of “emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress”, I had my own emotional, physical, and mental scars. I’ve had to weather a lot of personal storms and those traumas have left me as the person I am today. I still have a lot of work to do and I need help with a lot of it too. How and when I’ll get to those are up to me and that annoying thing called money but I’m aware of them at least in principle. Love is a regenerative force and a reminder of those weather-induced scars and how I need to combat them. But the rain always stops the fire from doing its worst.