Not in the way people mean they say they’ve had a long day or week. In the way where your brain never actually stops. Where rest isn’t really rest because even when your body is supposed to rest your mind is ten places else, checking, looping, managing, controlling. Always in my head.
I did not have the exact words for what it was like until I heard them in Jenny’s song
What’s that like?
I know that sounds so small but within seconds of her singing everything clicked. Not because I didn’t think other people like us existed, logically I knew other people MUST feel how I have been feeling. I knew. But knowing and feeling it and hearing it exactly how I’ve experienced it are completely different things. The song wasn’t just relatable, it felt like it was made for me. Like someone had gotten in here, looked around and decided to write it all down.
Her music truly encompasses all of it. Not in a way that feels like a coincidence. In a way that feels intentional, like she has been able to… at nearly a decade younger, be able to verbalize my deepest fears.
Once Upon a Time does just about the same. The why is what haunts me. Near the end she keeps coming back to it, the desperate question that keeps being asked and never answered. When do I get to know why. When do I get to know why. When.
And that’s the entire thing.
That’s what exhaustion is at the core of it. It’s not the constant checking, and rituals, or the impossible standards. It’s the never knowing. Doing all the work, carrying all the weight, managing all those spaces, and not having the most basic answer.
Why. Why am I like this. Why does it feel like this. Why has it always felt like this. When did I not feel like this? Can I remember? Why didn’t I notice? Why did no one notice?
So that’s what this is all about. This blog is me and Jenny Baker and the question I’ve been too busy managing to ask.
WHY? And what the heck is gonna happen when I finally let myself find out.
