Some weeks will completely drain you

Lesson #6 of 40

As I approach 40, I’m embarking on a year-long project to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned in four decades of life. This is lesson #6. You can read the full series here.

Some weeks will feel like walking through fog. (Getty Images)

There will be some weeks when you spend too much time working and not enough time living. You will be stuck in your head, despite the protests of your body. By the time you do listen to your body, it will be too late. Your shoulder will ache. Your lower back will throb. Your leg muscles will be tight. All from sitting for too long? You will ruefully remember all those sitting-is-the-new-smoking headlines you ignored.

There will be some weeks when you reach the bottom of your cup. Pouring from an empty cup, as they say, is not only impossible — it’s also a bad idea. There will be nothing left to pour, but you will still try. Your exhaustion will come out sideways. You will be far from the best version of yourself.

There will be some weeks when none of your outfits look right. When every day is a bad hair day. When the piles of stuff in your house seem to have multiplied overnight. You will wonder how those things — your house, your routines, your body, your life — got this way and whether it’s futile to try to turn them around.

There will be some weeks when the news feels extra bleak. Stories of never-ending wars, worsening inequalities, and always-disappointing politicians will make you want to sob or dissociate — or some nauseating combination of the two. Alarm bells will ring in your soul. The only thing that will creep higher than the temperature outside will be your dread. How bad can it get? It will all feel like too much, like we are collectively not doing enough. Like you’re not doing enough.

There will be some weeks when your creativity is lacking and your insecurity is raging. You will wonder why you even believed in yourself in the first place. You will marvel at how effortless other writers and creators make it seem. You will try to pour from your proverbial cup once more. Still empty. You will read perfect, gorgeous sentences and want to weep.

There will be some weeks that feel like they last forever.

These weeks will pass. This is the lesson. They always pass.

xoxo
KHG

p.s. Some weeks, of course, are not so draining. Here’s the companion lesson.