A bad ally

©MCD

“Just give me some time”, she muttered as she stormed off.

Tiredness is a sneaky feeling. It gets you to the extent where you want to punch something to let off steam, but at the very same time, you feel the urge to break down in tears.

Time is vital. It helps you regroup, regather your thoughts, and re-energise yourself to be able to keep going.

But solitude also works. Particularly because it constrains you from saying something you shouldn’t or cannot retract.

When you’re exhausted, go somewhere alone. Perhaps even better, sleep it off.

Tiredness is never a good ally.

He showed up with a flower, after what he deemed a revitalising period of time.

She couldn’t help but smile.

All we really want is to feel important and appreciated, and that all the work we do – regardless how meaningless it may seem – is noticed and valued.

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When tired gains a new meaning

We hear it being whispered, being shared in secret gatherings, being discussed among friends, being confessed to psychologists, being admitted during our most exasperated moments.

We’re tired.

We’re tired of this entire situation; this new reality that is dangerously becoming the new norm.

Life with a pandemic, a virus we still know little about. Life with social distancing, masks, restrictions, regulations, opening and closing of the economy, schools, social life.

We’re tired of the fear that is being spread together with the disinformation about it all.

We’re tired of the isolation and alienation this is causing.

We’re tired of the bellicose atmosphere resulting from everyone being on edge.

We’re tired of this being the only topic of conversation constantly and everywhere.

We’re tired that it is beyond our control and all we can do is hope.

But most of all we’re so tired of being tired of it all.

Also part of Your Daily Word Prompt

Inspired by Once Upon a Picture

The long hours of a day

When you wake up too early, you give yourself the chance to do a lot during the day. Things you otherwise complain you don’t have the time to do. Things you’ve been stalling, postponing or procrastinating in doing. You view the world differently when you see it from the first light of dawn to the last artificial light of night. You appreciate it more perhaps.

But – for there is always a but – having this abundant time in your hands also gives others the chance to irritate you more. Because just as easily as you find things to rejoice and be grateful for during the day, you also spot the negative (usually small) stuff that annoy you to the bone. And these are worse because they overturn every positive thought you try to create.

We allow ourselves too often to get affected by others. We enable them to push all the wrong buttons and then blame them for being who they are.

There are days when no matter how optimistic and creative you may want to be, something usually capsizes the entire process. These days are usually (but not restricted to) Mondays.

Regardless the surge of stress that overwhelms us; the incessant feeling that you’re constantly on edge; and that unwavering sentiment that you cannot bring yourself to relax, there is always a way. What you’re currently doing is obviously not it. You just need to find it.

It certainly helps to have people around you who can talk you out of a negative mood and help calm that storm that’s been brewing inside since that forced wake-up at dawn.

Reaching the limit

The thing with exhaustion is that you only realise it has overwhelmed you when you start to make mistakes. And if you don’t do something about it in time, it may prove disastrous.

People get tired. It’s a part of life. We often push ourselves to our limits because we are determined we can do more, we can be better, more productive, more responsible, more efficient, more organised…just…more. We live in an era when multitasking is considered the norm. But what this does to your physical and mental abilities – let alone your psychological state – is disregarded.

We begin to feel tired but prefer to take vitamin supplements rather than get some rest.

We even fall sick but choose to heal with pills and freshly-squeezed orange juices instead of relaxing a little.

We collapse from exhaustion when we have ignored all of the signs our body is sending us. But then it takes twice as long to return to what we see as “normal”. To doing numerous things at once and at the end of the day complaining that we did not have enough time to do everything we were contemplating in the morning. Time is always an issue. But the fact that we run low of energy is simply an obstacle for modern society.

Perhaps we need to slow down and set priorities. To do a few things within the day and do them right, rather than do numerous haphazardly.

The most difficult part is acknowledging that you’ve reached this state and you need to permit yourself to relax, take a breath and believe that you can do everything if you firstly take care of your own self.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Permit

Those days

There are some days when you feel like the world has literally fallen on you and crushed you down. When you don’t want to even try and get out of bed. When all you really want is to roll over and fall into the warm embrace of the person you love.

There are days when everything seems futile. When you can’t seem to take any decisions, because even that seems too difficult. When you wish someone else could take all the responsibilities off your shoulders.

There are some days when your emotions are triggered by the slightest of things. When your sensitivity hits another level. When it is so easy for you to start crying just because it is what may make you feel some sort of relief.

There are those days when you just want to know that somebody cares. That somebody is there to look after you when you’re not feeling you. When you want to let go and get lost in the arms of someone who loves you. When you want to feel just as loved as all the love you have on offer. When you want to believe that the world is not as harsh as it reveals itself to be sometimes. And that in those very days, everything can become right. By the simplest of actions. By simply showing you truly care. By offering a warm hug and a bright smile.

A preemptive apology

It is a fact that you moan when you’re tired. And you get grumpy. And easily irritated. And all of a sudden very emotional.

Being tired is like being drunk. You shift into alternate emotions so rapidly that the person next to you has no time to realise what hit them.

It’s also like being hungry: like that Snickers ad campaign states, “you’re not you when you’re hungry”.

If you’re a woman during a certain time of the month, that simply accentuates the problem. Add the heat and your patience has just run out.

Our fast life rhythms keep us alert perhaps far more than we can cope with. Because sometimes, you need time off everything to re-instate order in your life and make your affairs manageable again.

We all pass through periods of (extreme) exhaustion. It happens, because we want to believe that we can handle more than we truly can. And often because we don’t see the tiredness setting in until our organism itself begins to protest. That is when it strikes you. And that is when you begin to moan. To become irritable, stretching that vein in your head that is ready to pop whenever you reach your limits either of yelling or of tension.

The meltdown / outburst is usually short-lived but long-felt. It is a time when you easily blurb out things you don’t mean, that you shouldn’t say in the first place, but which you do because the exhaustion has drained out the best of you. You quickly regret it all and a feeling of remorse sets in quicker than a brain freeze. You are able to calm down within minutes after the explosion, trying to explain to those around you that you are just not you when you’re tired.

So, for all those instances that this has happened – and it is repeated quite a lot lately for the obvious reasons already stated – I want to apologise. I am sorry I yell so easily, shrieking my little vein off, and jumping at the slightest of remarks. I am sorry that I have allowed myself to reach the verge of exhaustion to the extent that I cannot think clearly or rationally at times, becoming all the more annoyed if people follow a different trail of thought. And I am sorry if my breakdowns end up pushing you away, when in reality all I really need is a warm embrace and the encouragement that everything will be alright. Just like with everything in life, it all passes.

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles” – Charlie Chaplin

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Apology

Lesson of the day

You know that feeling you get towards the end of the day, when you realise that going to bed late the previous night was a bad idea? It’s because the tiredness catches up with you and you’re suddenly drained, to the extent that even coffee makes you sleepy now.

It’s nice exploiting to the fullest every waking hour you have. So much, that you are even out of the country and back during the week without anyone realizing. Or to the point that you have taken multitasking to another level with the amount of things you do.

But there is one thing that you need to run all of this: just like an engine needs fuel, you need sleep. And it is not easy. Because when you finally get comfortable and curl up in bed, you suddenly remember everything you need to do and become wide awake again. In a vicious-circle-like phase, you’ll be back to feeling sleepy the next afternoon, right in the middle of all those things you just mentally noted you need to complete.

Whatever the case, we all need to find a few extra hours to catch up on this vital life process. You’ll hear a lot about what sleep deprivation can do – increase your need for food, add extra pounds, encourage wrinkles, diminish your memory. Most of all, you won’t be able to fully process everything you are so actively engaged in, if you are not adequately rested and awake to enjoy them!

An instant switch

It’s called rolling back instantly. At least that was what Helga used to call it. Her grandmother told her it was a trait inherited from the women’s part of the family.

It usually came more abruptly during those hectic days, when Helga was multitasking beyond her stress capacity. When she was constantly running around with things to do, filling up her diary with post-its just so she wouldn’t forget anything, and never being able to reduce her to-do list. It was those days when she didn’t even have time to think. But once the storm passed and things quietened down to normal (breathing) rhythms, Helga’s mind began to wander again.

And that is when it struck.

That sinking feeling that switched her mood from feeling like a queen bee to feeling like a homeless pauper. All in less than a second. It all happened so fast, none of her friends ever understood how someone could change emotions so rapidly.

But it happened.

It was because when she finally relaxed – be it after a warm bath or a proper meal – that is the moment when her body began to catch up with her. That is when the tiredness sunk in, when the exhaustion hit her nervous system, and when her brain was calling for a temporary, but immediate, shut down in order to recuperate.

It didn’t last too long – maybe until the next day – but all she could do when it happened was try to relax and simply go to bed. Crawl under the covers and allow herself those few precious hours of literally not thinking about anything else other than what Morpheus brought along.

Also part of Daily Prompt: Mountaintops and Valleys

Choose wisely

They say that when you select your career path, you need to choose wisely for it is what you will spend most of your life doing. It will be what will determine your character, your personality, your entire being. It will be through what you will learn to deal with whatever life throws at you and how to cope with it all. But most of all it will be the prism through which you will view everything around you.

When I chose to be a journalist, I never had a doubt. It was a profession depicted as adventurous, exciting and fascinating. It was a chance to travel, even if it was simply around your neigbourhood, to meet people and learn their stories and then be creative in writing it all out for other people to read. And the satisfaction of having others view and praise your work is, of course, priceless and worth all the effort.

But what they don’t tell you about this profession is that it requires at times inhuman hours. Long waits doing absolutely nothing. Constant screening of everything that goes on the web – on every platform and social network. Of cross-checking facts before you say anything, just to be sure. Of reporting alleged claims and two seconds later confirming they have been refuted. Of covering 17-hour marathon negotiations that have been described as the “European Union’s most historic and significant Council” in order to avert the collapse of the entire system due to a single country’s breakdown. Yet, even with hardly a couple of hours sleep in the night that results in you spending the rest of the day stumbling over just by moving between living room and kitchen, it is somehow all worth it. When you see that the articles you wrote are being shared and liked, that you are being recognized as fluent and exceptional in what you do.

Right then you don’t think about the tiredness anymore or the lack of sleep. You simply dwell in the satisfaction that you did indeed choose wisely. And this is a path you never regret having taken.

The day the lights suddenly went out

It happened on an October morning. It was strange because October was always the month that made her more melancholic. It may have been the eventual setting-in of autumn with the cold and rain becoming the daily weather trend, but it may also have been that another end of year was rapidly approaching and it made her contemplate on everything happening in her life as she became another year older.

Anyhow, it happened that morning. The sun was shining brightly outside, despite the fact that it was raining heavily all night. She couldn’t have seen it coming. She had felt weak for days but blamed it on the psychological impact of the particular month, the full moon, the zodiac signs, anything other than what it really was: fatigue. She was clearly overworked and underfed. But she just didn’t stop. She didn’t know how, and didn’t really want to. Because if you stop, you need to face reality. And that was just something she didn’t want to do.

She had asked her mother that morning to draw the curtains because the sunlight was burning her face. Her mother did so, unwillingly, as she really needed this Vitamin D so freely offered that day.

She didn’t have the energy to get up, not even sit in bed. She didn’t have an appetite either. All she wanted to do was remain curled up under the covers. Couldn’t she just vanish?

But alas, nature called. And she was forced to get up. But that was when it happened. All she remembers was washing her face in the bathroom and enjoying the coolness of the water on her scorching forehead. But then everything went black. And she remembers nothing.

Fainting, also known as “passing out” – medical term: syncope – happens when you lose consciousness for a short time because your brain is not getting enough oxygen. It is usually brief, lasting from a few seconds, to a few minutes. Yet, she couldn’t tell how long she was out. It is as if she simply disappeared for those moments. Just as she had wanted to.

All she remembers is feeling lightheaded and a bit dizzy before everything “blacked out”. There was nothing more. She didn’t know where she was or if she was somewhere at all. All she knows is that for those brief moments she was calm, carefree, and invisible.

She opened her eyes to her mother gently slapping her cheeks. She looked up and saw her mother as pale as a ghost – not that she had ever seen a ghost, but she was white as a sheet. And that scared her. She mumbled that she was fine. But she could not imagine being on the other end. Of having to pick up the person who fainted, of not really knowing what to do, of trying to bring them back. It took a few minutes before she could sit up and return to normal, as much as possible that is. But the incident was one she would never forget. Even if there really was nothing to remember.

That night she had soup, slid under the blanket and fell asleep to the rain growing louder outside. She loved being in bed when it was raining. It made her feel safe, because no matter the hailstorm that was going on out there, she was untouchable under the covers.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Ready, Set, Done