I'm Tired.

But not for the usual reasons you might suspect.

I haven’t been working an unmanageable number of hours and I haven’t been doom scrolling the news. Instead I’m tired for more mundane, everyday reasons.

Like forgetting to go grocery shopping over the weekend and therefore struggling to figure out what to feed myself during the rare 30-minute window I don’t have a meeting. Or having to remind myself to do my physical therapy exercises because I dislocated my shoulder a year ago and am still dealing with persistent pain around my shoulder and down my spine. Or feeling burnt out from “being on” and having to solve problems all day for my job.

I pride myself on being a strong, emotionally resilient, and capable person, so when I catch myself feeling like this - tired and worn down by things that seem truly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things - I feel a little guilty. What a luxury and a privilege to have such trivial “problems” when there are others who struggle with far worse in the world.

But I’m taking this moment to remind myself that all emotions are valid, contextualized within our lived experiences. We can be empathetic to the experiences of others without also discrediting the validity of our own emotions and experiences. Because how can we be empathetic and of service to others if we lack the ability to bear witness to our own emotional world? How can we acknowledge and validate another’s feelings if we are unwilling to acknowledge and validate them in ourselves?

So here I am admitting that I’m struggling to be “on” right now, and giving myself permission to sit in the feeling rather than dismiss it. I know it will eventually pass, as it usually does. And I will come out the other side better for it.

I hope this also gives you permission to feel what you’re feeling, however ugly or silly it may seem. You are allowed to feel the way that you feel.