The Creative Art Of Being Permanently Exhausted
I don’t even know where to begin. Writing feels so foreign at this point, and it’s all for one reason: I’m so tired
The kind of tired you feel, so you take a nap and somehow wake up even more tired. The kind of tired that makes you sit quietly and wonder what exactly drained you this much, but you cannot seem to point to one singular thing. No, you are not lazy or overdramatic. You are just burnt out, and the results are not showing fast enough to justify the exhaustion you feel.
So, what do you do when your body craves rest but your brain knows you cannot afford to shut down? Worse still, what do you do when you are too emotionally fried to even enjoy resting properly?
For a while now, I’ve felt my hard drive getting full. Some days, I’m convinced I can hear my brain shouting “Error” while my eyes ache so much I feel like they might fall right out. Everything started to feel like too much at once. Too many expectations. Too many responsibilities. Too many tabs open mentally (all self-imposed, btw…), but the craziest part is that life does not pause simply because you are tired. The clock keeps moving. Work still needs to be done. Assignments still need to be submitted. Deadlines still exist. People still need you to show up.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you slowly begin to feel guilty for simply being human.
That has been the hardest part for me, I think. Not even the exhaustion itself, but the pressure I place on myself despite it. The sickening feeling that crawls into my chest whenever everything is not ticked off my to-do list. The silent panic that whispers, “You are falling behind.” The pressure to constantly show up at full capacity, even when I barely have anything left to pour out.
But lately, I think I have been learning something important.
Or maybe unlearning.
I am learning that doing the best I can in any given moment is worth far more than stretching myself thin just to say I got more things done. Because what is the point of completing ten tasks if I am too exhausted even to recognise myself afterwards?
I am learning to prioritise.
To accept that not everything deserves immediate access to me, my time, my emotions, or my energy. Some things genuinely do not matter as much as I once believed they did. Some things can wait. Some things should wait. And some things honestly need to be released altogether. This isn’t a sign of failure. It is self-care babyyyy
For the longest time, I wore the ability to carry everything as a badge of honour. I thought being “strong” meant constantly taking on more weight. More responsibility. More emotional labour. More expectations. But I am beginning to realise that constantly carrying things we were never meant to carry can slowly turn you into your own unattended crisis.
Being superwoman is not the flex I thought it was. Sometimes it is just slow self-destruction dressed up as capability. So please, my love, let go and let God do his job abeg.
And maybe this is where grace comes in.
Not the polished, inspirational kind people post online, but the uncomfortable kind that forces you to loosen your grip a little. The kind that allows you to finally admit that you are tired without attaching shame to it. The kind that lets you ask for help instead of silently drowning while trying to prove how capable you are. God wasn’t joking when he said to give him your burdens, and he will take care of you – Psalm 55:22
I am learning that delegating work does not mean I care less. It does not make me weak or lazy or less committed. And if I am being honest, I am also slowly accepting that the so-called “perfectionism” tagline is sometimes just a marinated excuse for wanting things done my own way.
I am learning to give people grace. That people will think differently. Work differently. Respond differently. And maybe there is beauty in that, too. Maybe loving people properly means giving them room to be human without punishing them for not being me.
I am learning that humans will be humans, but I get to determine how I let their flaws affect me. To never let it shape who I am or how I respond to them. Because who they are should never change who I am.
I am learning not to carry people’s weights more than they are willing to carry for themselves. Because truly, the only Messiah here is Jesus. So let him do his job.
That lesson alone has exhausted me enough.
You cannot save everyone. You cannot fix everyone. You cannot pour endlessly into people who refuse to pour into themselves. At some point, constantly carrying what was never yours to hold begins to crush you. Pray and leave it for Jesus oooo.
So now, I am trying to sit back more.
To pause before reacting. To evaluate every situation.
To ask myself:
“Is this worth my energy?”
“Does this actually matter in the grand scheme of who I am becoming?”
“Will future me be proud of how I handled this?”
And strangely enough, those questions have been softening me.
Not into someone careless or indifferent, but into someone more intentional. Someone learning that rest is not failure. That slowing down is not a sign of weakness. That exhaustion is not something to romanticise simply because the world applauds productivity.
Because at the end of the day, what matters most to me is being able to look at myself honestly and still feel proud of the person staring back.
Not because she did everything perfectly. Not because she carried the world flawlessly.
But because even in her exhaustion, she remained kind. Wise. Soft. Honest. Human.
And maybe that is enough for now.
With all my love,
Hummingbird
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