Yesterday was…bad. Bad at home, bad at work*, bad internally. Maybe the full moon, maybe Mercury retrograde, maybe just “one of those days,” but I’ve been thinking I’ve been doing okay, holding it together, until being given unsolicited advice I probably needed to hear, and I realizing the only one I’ve been fooling is myself.

It was: “Don’t take this the wrong way, because it’s given in the spirit of ‘it takes one to know one,” and as someone who’s been there: you’re going to kill yourself if you keep going like this. You need to find a happy space, start taking care of yourself, and probably get medicated. Soon.”

And It was hard to hear, but as I considered how I’ve been dealing with the exhaustion, the stress, the disease, the job(s)…He’s not wrong. I’ve driven myself nearly manic.

I think a lot of us do- everyone in general, but caretakers in particular.

We’re often so isolated that there’s no one there to point out the obvious to us, even though we’ve heard it all- “You can’t pour from an empty cup,”. “Put your own airmask on before attempting to help others,” etc etc. Maybe we’re so busy just coping that we don’t let anyone in enough to see the truth of what’s going on. Or maybe, most painfully, that the people around us just find it easier to remain willfully oblivious. Or that those people around us are so busy dealing with their own pain that they can’t see ours.

This near stranger saw me for a minute, likely more clearly than I’ve been seeing myself.

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*in retrospect, the work part is kinda funny, now that I’m not in the middle of it. Rough night all around on the phones, everybody’s mad, everybody’s in a hurry, I get it. But the last call is someone who is bellowing, losing his mind for a good half hour, calling me all kinds of names…because his internet went down for 5 minutes. It’s back up now, but I have RUINED HIS WEEKEND and he is “HIGH AND DRY NOW- WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THAT, HUH??!”

Turns out dude had some “Netflix and chill” action going on, and when the internet went off for those few minutes, she left. Sweetheart, if she was out the door that fast, she was looking to get out anyway.

Funny now…when I was being screamed at and accused of all kinds of things, not so much, especially exhausted, burnt out, and allowing his profane name-calling to get to me. Perspective and balance: I will find them again.