(I’m challenging myself to write daily starting now, 7/31/2025)

Almost 2-years ago, I intentionally decided to slow down and really think about what came next for me. My full-time position at a college ended in June of 2023 and I haven’t looked back…much. I was able to step off the circle jerk because I had a contract position with another college – it is remote flexible work, had retirement to that I could drain to bridge, and I had my side gig.

Honestly, I have a huge problem with grossly overestimating my ability to do things. This leads me to overloading myself with work stuff. And academic life is easy to overload on. I mean, the bulk of what I do is sit around and read, think about things, talk with people, and write.

That sounds chill right? But seriously, none of this is easy for geeky people like myself. I get sucked down rabbit holes, explore things more deeply – tracing them to their origins, spider off into different directions, fine-tuning that paper/workshop/talk I’m working on. Even a conversation that seems simple, often gets deep into the weeds of a topic, an idea, a theory, something and lasts much longer than the “water cooler conversation” at most work places.

I can seriously lose time when I’m digging into my heady academic work. I lose myself completely in it and my brain synapses fire off in rapid succession like firecrackers. Deadlines are merely suggestion. Sort of.

So, the years prior to my departure from the college, I had been doing a LOT of extra work. I started at the college just before COVID. Once COVID hit and shutdowns happened, my work intensified like everyone else whose work didn’t just close. Then when the racial uprisings of 2020 happened, my side hustle gigs lined up and again, my work intensified. I, like so many others, busied myself with delivering antiracist workshops and talks. I poured myself into the work, feeling the urgency of the moment and optimistically hoping to make some headway on the long arc of racism in this country.

I kept this pace for 4-years, burning the candle at both ends. Some weeks I’d spend 37 hours in Zoom for my full-time job, and another 25+ for my side hustle. Not gonna lie, I was rolling in dough – I miss that part.

I didn’t know then how deeply exhausted I was until I paused.

The summer of 2023, I want on a Black women’s writing retreat to Ghana for 2 weeks (I also added on a little mini-vacay in Dubai on my return). Before leaving for Ghana, I had planned to job search, scale my business up, and lean into my adjunct (contract) teaching gig. When I returned, I had a new plan – to take time so that I could be more intentional with my next move.

Still, I was not understanding how deeply depleted I was – cognitively, energy-wise, everything. I was peopled out and didn’t fully know it yet.

Well, it’s been 2-years now and I am only realizing how fully depleted I was.

I know some of what depleted my resources was racial battle fatigue, secondary trauma (there was some serious fuck shit happening at that college that ravaged the people of color – mostly women and LGBTQIA2S+ young professionals of color), and being stretched too thin. I’m not going to explain all these terms at this moment, so if you’re reading and don’t know what racial battle fatigue or secondary trauma are, Google is free.

As with anything, this deep exhaustion has rippled out into different areas of my life. For example, I am as close to a shut-in as I imagine I (being the social butterfly that I am) I am capable of becoming. The COVID shut in was divine for me. I loved being home, with my dog, doing my work peacefully and without interruption. When we were told to come back to the office. I resisted. Really turned out that I did not like the leadership at the college and some of my colleagues. I believe I said to more than one person, “This place violates my values.”

Since the election of the twice impeached, rapist, racist, rotting pile of human excrement, I have wanted to engage with people less and less. Specifically, white people I do not know (and many I know). I have never been more disinterested in engaging with humans in my entire life. I’m a people person. I’ve always loved chatting people up, making friends wherever I am. Partly due to age, I am coming to hate, loathe, and despise small talk with strangers. And, I’m not going to lie, it’s actually kind of freeing. I’ve always been an affable person, and now I’m reining it in.

I’m also a deeply empathetic person. I feel the suffering of people all over the world. Right now, in this moment in history, there is so much suffering – all over the globe. I think the human suffering is at an all time high for my lifetime. It could be that I’m finally paying attention. But I’m not sure that’s it because I’ve been paying attention closer and closer over the last 20 years or so. From several active genocides playing out – the Israeli genocide of Palestinians is playing out live on our devices, while the media and politicians pretend it isn’t happening – to the racist regime and the ICE gestapo disappearing people from homes/schools/hospitals/courts/churches/homes/etc, women being forced to be incubators for fetuses whether alive or dead, trans kids facing lack of services because the national government is waging war on gender affirming care, the destruction of all of our systems (many of which needed either significant overhaul or to be rebuilt anyways but now…), I mean, the carnage never stops.

How do we just go about life as normal with all this fuck shit going on all around us, real humans starving to death – children starving to death? How do we continue to get up, put on our clothes, and go to work to make small talk with a bunch of people who are either poorly informed, wholly ignorant, gleefully celebrating, or otherwise not deeply concerned for humans? How am I supposed to pretend I’m cool with a bunch of bigoted dolts? And I don’t care what they’re bigoted about – race, gender, gender identity, pronouns, immigrants, Muslims, I literally do not care. Because ANY bigotry is not okay and I will absolutely speak up. And probably not too kindly, which wouldn’t make me long for any job I’m sure. Because the one thing I know about myself is, if the place and/or the people violate my values, I can no longer stay.

Anyways, I’ve gotten off topic. I have learned so much about myself these last two years by going slower and being more intentional with what I do and who I am around. I’ve learned and internalized how much I cannot deal with liars, fakes, and phonies. I’ve learned I’m no longer interested in playing the politics of respectability (I never was but socialization is a total bitch and hard to break). I’ve learned that I need my solitude, I like being around myself, left alone with my thoughts. I also don’t think I can get up early (I’ve always loathed mornings), shower, go off to work, engage in countless high-level conversations, reply to numerous emails, do whatever other duties, run by the grocery store after work, come home, make a meal, and go to bed. I don’t think I have that kind of energy anymore.

These days, I take a shower, take a walk, do some business stuff (banking, replying to emails, scheduling appointments, going to appointments, whatever), do the dishes, do my adjunct gig, and I’m wiped – that is a super full day anymore. I seriously don’t know how I’ve been waking up, getting ready for work, going to work, working in doctor/dentist appointments, grocery shopping, housekeeping, and whatever else all these years. It’s too much. For anybody, not only me.

Really, there has to be more to life than going to work, coming home, paying bills, and waking up to do it all again for the hope of MAYBE being able to take a vacation once a year or once every few years or to MAYBE be able to retire one day when we’re too infirm to enjoy life (that was never going to be my life anyways, retirement.)

Anyways, so there you have it. I slowed way down, took time to rest, to heal, to take care of myself after a crazy 4-years (I’m not even talking about having to battle every single day of my entire life, that’s another area of exhaustion), and didn’t disintegrate or spontaneously combust or cease to exist. Sure, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing next. I do need another job with benefits soon cuz I got some things I gotta take care of and I need a better salary than this adjunct thing – these gigs pay absolute crap. For now, I’m mostly content, somewhat becoming antisocial, and enjoying my solitude.