Weather-beaten

Filed under: life

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.

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. Falling in love has been both a regenerative force and a reminder of those weather-induced scars and how I need to combat them. But these days, the rain doesn’t bring me down so much.

69 simple pleasures
Things to remember for 2023