u/emptycarouselrider

TW: language

I talk too fucking much.

And when I say that, I don't even necessarily mean that I actually talk too much, although sometimes I definitely do … I ramble … I get too chatty. I jump from subject to subject, like frogs do on lilypads, and somehow, I find a way to also include a song lyric or movie reference in nearly every conversation I have. Whatever. But when I say I talk too much, what I really mean is that I say too much, I share too much. I don't know how not to be honest. If I feel something, I say it; if I like somebody, I tell them; if I want to spend more time with somebody, I tell them. If I love somebody, even if they don't love me back, whether they just don't, or can't, or won't, whatever the reason, it's important to me that they know I love them. I don't know how to filter how I express my emotions without feeling like I'm being dishonest - not necessarily dishonest with them, but dishonest with myself.

I've thought about this often, largely because I know I can make people uncomfortable. I know that the way I speak and even some of the words I use are different, archaic at times even, but I use them based on their definitions, not what can be inferred by them.

I can tell somebody, *I would love to wake up next to you every morning,* and they can understand that as me saying I want some huge, serious relationship with them … but that's not what I said. I said I would love to wake up next to you every morning. That's it. Waking up next to someone you enjoy is nice, right? Why does it have to mean anything beyond that?

The same thing happens when I tell somebody I want to date them. To me, dating isn't a relationship; dating simply means I want to spend more time with you. I want to get to know you. I'm curious about you. Dating is the curiosity phase. I don't think a relationship is something that just happens without all parties talking about it. There are discussions that need to happen, there are things that need to be understood and agreed upon before you enter an actual relationship with somebody, imo. But apparently even saying I want to date a person can sound much more serious to some than it does to me.

And I know part of this is just me and the way I talk. I say weird things, and I say normal things in really weird ways. I have a friend who had a burn on her arm, and I said, "Oh no, you have an owie," and she started laughing at me. *An owie?* Yes. An owie. What the fuck else is it? That's just what I call them. They're owies to me, just like how underwear is underoos, spiders are spooders, and refrigerators are fridginators. I don't know what to tell you. I can't change those things about myself, and I don't particularly want to.

That's just the language I use when I'm speaking, especially when I'm comfortable around people. I'm not gonna walk into Home Depot and ask to see their fridginators. I know the correct pronunciation, but whenever able, I revert to silly words and pronunciations, even if my only reason is because otherwise life is too fucking serious. I had a child correct me once for calling a spider a spooder, and I'll never forget the way he looked at me as he sternly said, *It's spider, not spooder* … his face shuffled through a mixture of bewilderment, embarrassment, and disappointment as he gave me a look that undeniably said, *You should know this at your age.*

When it comes to emotions, though, I'm actually pretty literal. I write in metaphor all the time, and I do speak in metaphor often as well, but if I'm telling you directly how I feel about you, I'm probably just telling you directly how I feel about you. There isn't anything hiding in my words - and there is never any expectation attached to them.

This is probably one of the biggest disconnects I have with other people because I legitimately do not have expectations of other people. Zero. Outside of things that are done for money, I don't believe it is appropriate or fair to place expectations on another person. If I pay someone to do something, sure, I can expect a certain level of quality because that's the agreement. But outside of that? No. I certainly don't expect another person to feel a way just because I feel that way. I don't expect someone to love me because I love them. I wouldn't ever dream of asking for that from anyone. So when I tell someone I love them, that's not me saying, now you have to love me back. I'm just telling them I love them. That's it.

One of my favorite sayings is this - *I am responsible for what I say, not what you understand.* I know that's probably not completely fair in every situation because obviously communication goes both ways, but at the same time, understand what I'm actually saying and don't infer a bunch of shit I didn't say. If I tell you I would love to wake up next to you every morning, don't turn it into a marriage proposal. If I tell you I like you, don't turn that into some expectation that now we're going to be together. If I tell you I miss you, it doesn't mean I'm demanding your time. I am literally just telling you something that is true for me.

I've long understood that feelings are fluid. They're almost always subject to change, and I think that's another thing that gets lost when people hear me say something and assume it represents some absolute truth about what I want forever. I can know that I like somebody without knowing everything about them. I can know that I want to spend more time with somebody without knowing where the connection is going. I don't need someone's entire life story to know that I like them. For me, so much of my life is based on feeling … not feelings, but the way things *feel* … the way a place feels, the way I feel when I'm in it, the way a person feels around me, the way I feel when I'm around them. I know I like somebody because being around them feels good to me. Their energy feels good to me. I want to know more about them, and I want to spend more time there, where it feels good. That's all it means.

Like means like, it does not mean love. Those two words have very different definitions - they are often neighbors, but I find that they rarely share the same bed. I certainly do not love every person I like, and sometimes I don't even like the people I love. When I do love and like a person equally, I say exactly that - I love you and I like you.

And yes, ultimately I may be looking for love. I may be looking for a deep connection with somebody. I can be completely honest about that without saying that every person I like is now a candidate for the position. If I'm spending time with somebody and their intent is purely physical or sexual, they need to be honest about that. Seriously. Just fucking tell me. I'm capable of having relationships with people on all kinds of levels of intensity, intimacy, and romance. If I enjoy who you are and I enjoy your company, I may be completely content to continue whatever connection we have exactly as it is. It doesn't have to become anything more simply because ultimately I want something more in my life.

But I need to know the truth of where they're at so I know how to stay in my lane. I deserve the truth, even if it's ugly … we all deserve the truth. How else are we supposed to actually make any informed decisions when we live on half-truths and pretty lies?

Honesty is really important to me - tbh, it's more important to me than literally anything else. I give people an out by telling them where I'm at and what I'm looking for. I think it's only fair that they give me the same out if they're not walking down the same road. It doesn't mean we can't still walk together for a while; it just means I know where we're going. Or, more importantly, where we're not going. I don't want to believe there is possibility where it doesn't truly exist, and the same goes in reverse … If somebody likes me and I don't feel the same way, I say it. I don't want somebody carrying feelings and hope for years, pining or longing for something that I already know I'm never going to give them. I don't want to be that for anybody. I know what it's like to live inside of that, and it's a pain I wish on no one.

Maybe that's why withholding my feelings looks so much like dishonesty to me. Failure to disclose is almost tantamount to a lie in my head … I don't feel like that about every thought I've ever had, obviously, but I definitely do about things that matter; things that affect another person, things they deserve to know.

Love is probably the biggest one for me because it's the hardest to conceal and the hardest to speak out loud - but it's also the most important thing I think we can say to each other, and I don't think it's shared nearly enough. If I love somebody, I want them to know that I love them - even if they can't reciprocate it, even if they don't want to reciprocate it, and even if absolutely nothing changes because I told them. Sometimes all somebody needs is to know that they are loved and cherished and cared for.

People don't hear those things enough! We rarely know how others see us, how they hold us in their minds, how we've impacted their lives, or just what we mean to them. I am not that person. If someone is important to me, if someone has made an impact on my life, or is just someone whose presence I appreciate - I make sure they know it, explicitly. No lie, I went back to see a few of my junior high and high school educators years and years after I finished school just to tell them how important they were to me and how much they shaped my life. I had no expectation that they would do anything with that information, and I didn't need anything from them in return. I sincerely just wanted them to know that they mattered, they were important, and they were genuinely appreciated.

I think we all deserve to know that we are loved … I think part of my issue is that I don't understand the way love is talked about anymore. So much of what I see portrayed as love feels transactional to me, or like familiarity and comfort dressed up as devotion. It's always about what can this person provide to me? How can they improve my life? What do they bring to the table? And I don't know … but that's just never really been my definition of love. I'm not saying those things don't matter if you're actually going to build a life with somebody. Of course they matter, but I know that I could never love somebody because of those things.

I love people because of their minds, their hearts, and their spirits. I love people for being unapologetically authentic. I love the way certain people make me feel about myself and the way people make me think about things differently. I love when somebody challenges me to expand, grow, learn, and change healthily - not because of what they're providing to me, but because of what they share with me. Whether it is through experience, expression, or expansion, I love what they awaken inside of me.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel things quietly.

I know maybe I do need to say less sometimes, but also, fuck you, I don't want to. I don't want to spend my life trying to calculate how much honesty is acceptable. I am not good at math! How many times do I have to say that? I don't want to leave a carefully measured amount of mystery just to keep somebody interested; that feels too akin to manipulation to me. I don't want to feel something beautiful and immediately start figuring out how to make it smaller. I don't want to minimize my feelings just because society mislabeled openness and honesty with intensity and instability. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" … and every other poem and song like that wouldn't be so god-damned popular and well known if people didn't love hearing that shit!

I just don't think my filter has ever asked, Is this too much? It only asks, Is this true?

Maybe I need to start asking myself, Does this need to be said? I don't know. I'm still working on that because more often than not, especially with what's in my heart, I think absolutely, yes. If you matter to me, I want you to know. If you changed something in me, I want you to know. If I love you, I want you to know.

And you don't owe me a fucking thing because I told you. My feelings aren't a contract, they're not an obligation, they're not something I'm offering with my palm open, waiting for something in return. They're just mine, and I'm simply telling you my truth.

So maybe I do talk too fucking much. Maybe I say too much. Maybe there are things I could keep to myself and the world wouldn't end. I don't know.

I do know that there are worse things than going through life making sure that the people I love, like, and appreciate know just how I see them and how I feel about them. My I love yous sometimes go unheard, other times they flit away without so much as a whisper in return … sometimes they get tucked away in a pocket, like a lucky coin, something to reach for when life gets hard because you know it's there and you know it's real … sometimes they soar and build bridges, other times they fail simply because love can't hold everything or repair what's broken … but one thing my I love yous will never be is unspoken.

P.s. I'm not in love or dating. This is not intended for anyone, it's just some crap that's heavy in my head lately.

​

I'm not someone who spends much time congratulating myself. I am not prideful - braggadocio and ego truly have no place here, but every once in a while I think it's perfectly ok, important even, to at least acknowledge the things that make me feel proud, accomplished or successful. Especially when they're the types of things that are evidence of growth and healing, and even more so when that healing and growth was full of purpose and intent.

So, here are a few things I want to acknowledge, even if only to remind myself that they're true.

The first thing I'm proud of is how I showed up for my father recently … Only a few months ago, the words he spoke to me destroyed parts of me I never knew existed. Words that cut deeper than I think he'll ever fully understand. They shattered something in me, and I don't know that those pieces will ever be put back exactly as they were. I also don't know that an apology will ever come. Some hurts simply become background noise that only you can hear.

And yet, when he needed help moving, I went. Not reluctantly, or with a scorecard in my hand. I returned, almost instinctively, to being his loving, servile daughter. It was by pure chance that I had that week off, it was supposed to be my summer “vacation” - instead I packed the last 40 plus years of his and my mother's life together into boxes, and loaded my family history onto a U haul.

I was going to head to the coast for a week of much needed relaxation - but what my father needed was more important. I cared for him simply because he needed it.

That doesn't erase what happened between us, nor does it excuse it. That wound still very much exists. But I'm proud that I didn't allow it to turn me into someone I didn't want to be. My actions were guided by my values rather than my pain, not even an ill word was spoken between us. All I showed him, all that I cared to show him, was love. I wanted him to know, no - I needed him to know that no matter what the love will always be there, and that I will always be there.

There was a time when I might not have showed up at all. There was a time when I would have shown up only out of spite, with my pistol mouth fully loaded, and at least one extra clip. I love and honor those versions of me, they did the best they could with what they had, but I am not them anymore and I'm writing a different story.

The second thing I'm proud of is every living thing I brought home from my parents house … All the houseplants like the Christmas cactus that had been neglected for who knows how long sprang back to life after a long drink and some good sun. The African violet that was hanging on by the smallest thread … she had no viable root, but had a healthy crown still … after an extreme makeover, a traumatic move into a brand new tiny home, and 3 weeks in the ICU, she has started forming a new root ball and she's healthy! Can't forget the old dwarf umbrella tree, so woody and overgrown it resembled a scraggly Ent more than it did a house plant. He dropped all of his yellow leaves and has new green growth popping up everywhere.

Plus all of the outside plants I managed to snag … the day lilies, the calla lilies, the cannas, the jasmine, and every other rescue from my dad's garden … They were all successfully rehomed with love and care in gorgeous pots that now surround my deck. I giggle with the glee of a small child each time I'm out tending to them and I see new growth. New babies, everywhere! I legitimately sing “pretty little baby” out loud every time I see new growth. It's ridiculous, but it brings me joy. I even managed to revive some random rhizomes I found in an old pot of my mom's and now I have several Oxalis Trangularis that have started growing!

Then there are all of the cuttings … Every hydrangea clipping, every azalea clipping, every rose clipping … Every single one has rooted. The roses are in soil already, they rooted well there, but the hydrangeas and azaleas are rooting in water, pretty much all ready for transition to soil. I am about to have 15 hydrangeas, 6 azaleas and 4 different rose bushes! Thank goodness I have friends who also love plants because I already know what everyone is getting for Christmas, haha.

Not only has everything survived, it's begun to thrive. Everywhere I look, there is new growth, fresh leaves, tiny roots, new shoots pushing into the light. Tbh, it's been a bit of a “spiritual” experience … watching all of these living things go through some significant trauma, whether they were clipped from a bush or dug from the ground, that alone could have killed them … but I got to bear witness as they healed, and I got to help care for them through every phase.

Especially with the clippings, that doesn't always work out well, and it felt even more intimate watching them because they've been indoors, in glass bottles and jars. Luckily I had enough usable glassware, because it's been the easiest way to monitor all of them. I have surveyed them daily, inspecting each stem for signs of rot, and each leaf for signs of distress. I have changed their water every 3 days, given them all the best light this place has to offer, and turned each container by one quarter of a turn, clockwise, once a week. Four weeks later, with everything rooting and thriving, I feel confident to announce I am no longer a novice, ha.

All of the plants I've purchased from garden centers this year are thriving too. The little indoor jungle that started with only a couple of struggling cuttings has become lush and vibrant. My home is full of life now. Calathea, Begonia, Nanouk, Pothos x2, Silver Tree, Money Tree, three Philodendrons (one pink, one neon, one velvet leaf), String of Hearts, two Caperatas (one Luna red and one schumi red), the Raven ZZ plant, the Ponytail Palm, the Pink Fittonia, Ficus, Teddy Bear Plant, the Croton, and my newest addition, that came as a stowaway with one of the Philodendrons - a Hoya plant! I even have an air plant … and they're all THRIVING.

Plants don't care about good intentions. They respond to patience, observation, consistency, and care. They are resilient, just like humans, and they can often survive poor conditions (not you, Calathea), but man alive if it's not something else to help them thrive. Seeing them flourish the way they have reminds me that I am capable, and that my capacity for care has not diminished - if anything, it has expanded.

The third thing I'm proud of is something that I'm keeping to myself. It's not a “secret” or anything like that, and all it currently represents is possibility and curiosity. And tbh, that means more to me at this moment than I can adequately express. I don't have it in me yet to have faith in certainty, but possibility is something I can absolutely work with.

As I write this, as I step back and look at all of it together, I'm noticing something I hadn't seen before … This season of my life has been all about tending to things. I tended to my father despite my hurt. I tended to neglected plants until they remembered how to grow. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, without really noticing, I had also been tending to myself. I am a lover, through and through and I need something to pour it all into … my jungle grows because I love it so!

A few months ago, it felt as though everything in my life was collapsing. So many certainties disappeared, futures ended and my heart was broken, in some ways it still is, and may always be, but there were so many parts inside me that felt broken beyond repair … Now I look around and see growth everywhere. Life didn't suddenly become any easier, and my wounds aren't all magically healed, but growth doesn't only occur when skies are blue and conditions are perfect - just ask the lotus.

That's what healing looks like sometimes. It's rarely dramatic, nor does it announce itself all at once. Sometimes it looks like a new leaf where there wasn't one the day before, sometimes it's tiny white roots reaching through water. Sometimes it's a daughter choosing kindness without dismissing or weaponizing her pain. And sometimes it's simply the possibility of something beautiful.

For the first time in a long while, I don't feel surrounded by endings.

I feel surrounded by beginnings.

And I think that's something worth being proud of.

​

I'm not someone who spends much time congratulating myself. I am not prideful - braggadocio and ego truly have no place here, but every once in a while I think it's perfectly ok, important even, to at least acknowledge the things that make me feel proud, accomplished or successful. Especially when they're the types of things that are evidence of growth and healing, and even more so when that healing and growth was full of purpose and intent.

So, here are a few things I want to acknowledge, even if only to remind myself that they're true.

The first thing I'm proud of is how I showed up for my father recently … Only a few months ago, the words he spoke to me destroyed parts of me I never knew existed. Words that cut deeper than I think he'll ever fully understand. They shattered something in me, and I don't know that those pieces will ever be put back exactly as they were. I also don't know that an apology will ever come. Some hurts simply become background noise that only you can hear.

And yet, when he needed help moving, I went. Not reluctantly, or with a scorecard in my hand. I returned, almost instinctively, to being his loving, servile daughter. It was by pure chance that I had that week off, it was supposed to be my summer “vacation” - instead I packed the last 40 plus years of his and my mother's life together into boxes, and loaded my family history onto a U haul.

I was going to head to the coast for a week of much needed relaxation - but what my father needed was more important. I cared for him simply because he needed it.

That doesn't erase what happened between us, nor does it excuse it. That wound still very much exists. But I'm proud that I didn't allow it to turn me into someone I didn't want to be. My actions were guided by my values rather than my pain, not even an ill word was spoken between us. All I showed him, all that I cared to show him, was love. I wanted him to know, no - I needed him to know that no matter what the love will always be there, and that I will always be there.

There was a time when I might not have showed up at all. There was a time when I would have shown up only out of spite, with my pistol mouth fully loaded, and at least one extra clip. I love and honor those versions of me, they did the best they could with what they had, but I am not them anymore and I'm writing a different story.

The second thing I'm proud of is every living thing I brought home from my parents house … All the houseplants like the Christmas cactus that had been neglected for who knows how long sprang back to life after a long drink and some good sun. The African violet that was hanging on by the smallest thread … she had no viable root, but had a healthy crown still … after an extreme makeover, a traumatic move into a brand new tiny home, and 3 weeks in the ICU, she has started forming a new root ball and she's healthy! Can't forget the old dwarf umbrella tree, so woody and overgrown it resembled a scraggly Ent more than it did a house plant. He dropped all of his yellow leaves and has new green growth popping up everywhere.

Plus all of the outside plants I managed to snag … the day lilies, the calla lilies, the cannas, the jasmine, and every other rescue from my dad's garden … They were all successfully rehomed with love and care in gorgeous pots that now surround my deck. I giggle with the glee of a small child each time I'm out tending to them and I see new growth. New babies, everywhere! I legitimately sing “pretty little baby” out loud every time I see new growth. It's ridiculous, but it brings me joy. I even managed to revive some random rhizomes I found in an old pot of my mom's and now I have several Oxalis Trangularis that have started growing!

Then there are all of the cuttings … Every hydrangea clipping, every azalea clipping, every rose clipping … Every single one has rooted. The roses are in soil already, they rooted well there, but the hydrangeas and azaleas are rooting in water, pretty much all ready for transition to soil. I am about to have 15 hydrangeas, 6 azaleas and 4 different rose bushes! Thank goodness I have friends who also love plants because I already know what everyone is getting for Christmas, haha.

Not only has everything survived, it's begun to thrive. Everywhere I look, there is new growth, fresh leaves, tiny roots, new shoots pushing into the light. Tbh, it's been a bit of a “spiritual” experience … watching all of these living things go through some significant trauma, whether they were clipped from a bush or dug from the ground, that alone could have killed them … but I got to bear witness as they healed, and I got to help care for them through every phase.

Especially with the clippings, that doesn't always work out well, and it felt even more intimate watching them because they've been indoors, in glass bottles and jars. Luckily I had enough usable glassware, because it's been the easiest way to monitor all of them. I have surveyed them daily, inspecting each stem for signs of rot, and each leaf for signs of distress. I have changed their water every 3 days, given them all the best light this place has to offer, and turned each container by one quarter of a turn, clockwise, once a week. Four weeks later, with everything rooting and thriving, I feel confident to announce I am no longer a novice, ha.

All of the plants I've purchased from garden centers this year are thriving too. The little indoor jungle that started with only a couple of struggling cuttings has become lush and vibrant. My home is full of life now. Calathea, Begonia, Nanouk, Pothos x2, Silver Tree, Money Tree, three Philodendrons (one pink, one neon, one velvet leaf), String of Hearts, two Caperatas (one Luna red and one schumi red), the Raven ZZ plant, the Ponytail Palm, the Pink Fittonia, Ficus, Teddy Bear Plant, the Croton, and my newest addition, that came as a stowaway with one of the Philodendrons - a Hoya plant! I even have an air plant … and they're all THRIVING.

Plants don't care about good intentions. They respond to patience, observation, consistency, and care. They are resilient, just like humans, and they can often survive poor conditions (not you, Calathea), but man alive if it's not something else to help them thrive. Seeing them flourish the way they have reminds me that I am capable, and that my capacity for care has not diminished - if anything, it has expanded.

The third thing I'm proud of is something that I'm keeping to myself. It's not a “secret” or anything like that, and all it currently represents is possibility and curiosity. And tbh, that means more to me at this moment than I can adequately express. I don't have it in me yet to have faith in certainty, but possibility is something I can absolutely work with.

As I write this, as I step back and look at all of it together, I'm noticing something I hadn't seen before … This season of my life has been all about tending to things. I tended to my father despite my hurt. I tended to neglected plants until they remembered how to grow. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, without really noticing, I had also been tending to myself. I am a lover, through and through and I need something to pour it all into … my jungle grows because I love it so!

A few months ago, it felt as though everything in my life was collapsing. So many certainties disappeared, futures ended and my heart was broken, in some ways it still is, and may always be, but there were so many parts inside me that felt broken beyond repair … Now I look around and see growth everywhere. Life didn't suddenly become any easier, and my wounds aren't all magically healed, but growth doesn't only occur when skies are blue and conditions are perfect - just ask the lotus.

That's what healing looks like sometimes. It's rarely dramatic, nor does it announce itself all at once. Sometimes it looks like a new leaf where there wasn't one the day before, sometimes it's tiny white roots reaching through water. Sometimes it's a daughter choosing kindness without dismissing or weaponizing her pain. And sometimes it's simply the possibility of something beautiful.

For the first time in a long while, I don't feel surrounded by endings.

I feel surrounded by beginnings.

And I think that's something worth being proud of.

​

​

I've been out of paper towels for two months.

​

Not because I forgot to buy them. That's the funny part … I remembered them several times. Every few days I would reach for one, realize there weren't any, make a mental note to head to the store, and then simply... not do it.

​

About a week ago I ran out of toilet paper too. Ordinarily that would constitute an emergency. Instead, I looked at the empty roll, said “I have a bidet”, and decided it could wait. I waited five days, and finally bought them both today.

​

I realize this sounds ridiculous, but lately I've become fascinated by all the tiny ways exhaustion shows up in a person's life. Not dramatic exhaustion, not the kind that leaves you unable to get out of bed, but the quieter kind … The kind that slowly removes your desire to participate.

​

The paper towels aren't about paper towels, not really. They're just evidence … Evidence that somewhere along the way I became tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix.

​

I work from home, which means I spend almost all of my life in the same place. I wake up here. I work here. I eat here. I clean here. I pay bills here. I exercise here. I answer emails here. I exist here. Most days, the furthest I travel is from one room to another. My commute is all of 10 seconds.

​

It's not a bad life. In many ways, it's a beautiful one. I have a nice garden, and I have a deck overlooking the river. On warm evenings I sit outside and watch the water move through the Gorge, and for a little while everything feels quieter. Simpler. More honest somehow. The problem isn't that my life is terrible … The problem is that I am tired, and the longer I sit with that truth, the more I realize how many different directions that exhaustion is coming from.

​

Some of it is work. I work ten to twelve hour days, carrying responsibilities that affect a massive healthcare organization, and the billions of dollars that move through it every year. Every decision I make matters. Every mistake matters even more. The pressure is extreme, to say the least.

​

People often assume that working from home is somehow less demanding because there is no commute and no office to drive to, but stress does not care where your desk is located. The responsibility follows you all the same. By the end of the day, it often feels as though I have spent every ounce of concentration, analysis, problem-solving, and mental energy that I possess. My brain has been running at full capacity for so many hours that there is simply nothing left in reserve.

​

And increasingly, I find myself wondering what the long-term cost of that will be. Not financially, but physically, mentally and emotionally. What does it do to a person to spend years carrying that kind of stress? What are the consequences of operating at that level of pressure for so long that exhaustion begins to feel normal?

​

I don't know the answer. What I do know is that by the time my workday ends, I often feel as though I've already given the best of myself away. Everything that comes afterward, the errands, the chores, the social obligations, the planning, the maintenance of a life, has to compete for whatever fragments remain.

​

Some of this exhaustion is owed to discovering at forty-four that I'm autistic and realizing just how much energy I've spent over a lifetime trying to navigate a world that never came naturally to me. Not all of my exhaustion comes from that, but suddenly entire chapters of my life make more sense than they used to. Things I spent decades blaming on personal shortcomings now look very different in hindsight. And that is exhausting in its own right.

​

Some of this exhaustion is grief. Some of it is disappointment. Some of it is simply the cumulative weight of being the only person responsible for my life for a very long time.

​

That's the part I don't think people talk about enough … The endlessness of carrying everything yourself. Not because nobody has ever helped. Not because nobody has ever cared. But because at the end of the day, every responsibility eventually lands in your lap anyway.

​

The dishes. The laundry. The grocery shopping. The appointments. The finances. The cleaning. The planning. The remembering. The emotional labor. The practical labor. The invisible labor.

​

There is no one standing beside me asking, "What can I take off your plate?" There is only me. All those years as a single mother, working full time, going to school full time and taking care of my boys full time, plus all the years I carried everything on my own before and after motherhood ... Every relationship that I carried alone ... It all adds up, and after enough years of doing all of the heavy lifting alone, even small things begin to feel cumbersome.

​

I have a week of vacation scheduled at the end of June … Under normal circumstances, that would be exciting … I should have already had plans in place, but I don't. I should be researching destinations now. I should be looking at flights, booking hotels, building itineraries and deciding where I want to go and what I want to see. Instead, I haven't planned a single thing. Not because I don't want to travel. I do. I love to travel and I need to get away so very badly ...

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The problem is that every part of that trip belongs to me … Every decision, every reservation, every contingency plan, every single detail belongs to me. And that's why it feels so overwhelming. The hardest part is that I know what the opposite feels like … Last October, I traveled to New Orleans for a work conference. I'd never been there before, so I extended the trip and stayed through the weekend to explore and do touristy things. A friend joined me for part of it, and what followed was easily one of the best trips I've ever taken.

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It wasn't the best trip because New Orleans was magical, although it certainly has its charms and it wasn't because the hotel was extraordinary. And it wasn't because everything went perfectly. I mean, it was a work trip and I did have to actually work during conference sessions etc. I had to answer big questions asked by people with credentials far more grand than mine and we were all expected to network which I find incredibly exhausting and intrusive. What made it one of the best trips I've ever taken was how for almost an entire week, I wasn't really responsible for anything.

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During the conference, every hour of every day was planned for me, including evening events. Sessions, meetings, networking events, dinners, someone else had already made all of those decisions, plans and reservations. When the conference ended, my friend took the lead. They decided everything: where we ate, what we did, and everywhere we went. For nearly a week, I existed without carrying the weight of constant decision-making.

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I didn't have to research anything. I didn't have to compare options. I didn't have to create an itinerary. I didn't have to manage logistics. I didn't have to think five steps ahead. I simply showed up. And the realization that came afterward was both comforting and a little unsettling. The best trip I'd had in years wasn't the one with the nicest hotel or the most exciting destination. It was the one where I got to stop being responsible for everything.

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Tbh, even rest feels like it's just become another project to manage these days. And lately I've started noticing that this feeling extends into places I never expected it to. Even love. I find myself wondering whether I've given up on it, or whether exhaustion has simply convinced me that surrender and acceptance are the same thing.

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I don't know that answer either. Maybe I've been hurt too many times. Maybe I'm afraid of what it would cost me to lose someone again. Maybe after enough disappointments, hope simply became another thing that required energy I don't have. Or maybe I'm just exhausted. I genuinely don't know.

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What I do know is that there are days when I don't want to go anywhere, don't want to talk to anyone, don't want to make plans, don't want to solve problems, don't want to optimize my life, don't want to improve myself, don't want to network, don't want to socialize, don't want to participate in the endless performance of modern adulthood.

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I don't want to disappear from the world, not really, I just want the world to stop asking things of me for a little while. I want to set down every responsibility, every expectation, every decision, every obligation, and simply exist without needing to justify my existence through productivity or usefulness or effort.

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I want a day where nothing needs to be fixed, where nothing needs to be managed and nothing needs to be carried.

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And maybe that's what the paper towels have really been trying to tell me … Not that I've stopped caring, and not that I've stopped functioning, only that I have been carrying things for so long that even the smallest weight now feels heavier than it should.

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And if I'm being honest, I'm not longing for help. I'm longing for relief. I'm longing for rest that doesn't have to be earned. I'm longing for peace that arrives without first having to fight a war.

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