12/12/2024
Burn out and best intentions
Next to my bed, on my barstool-as-nightstand, is a new alarm clock. It is equipped with an attachment that slips into my pillowcase. When my alarm goes off it is loud enough to wake up my neighbors’ neighbors, and the attachment shakes my bed like an 80s horror movie special effect. This is so I can wake up. I haven’t been sleeping well.
We are well and truly burnt out now that the year is coming to a close and the dark is tight around the neck like a Dracula cape. My initial strategy against Seasonal Affective Disorder (working like a dog both professionally and creatively while hurling myself at every available social regardless of scale, duration, or proximity) failed me to the point we’re at now.
I am steeped in exhaustion. I sleep often, I rarely leave bed (thank you again, work-from-home job), and my workout regimen which gives me joy (and sweet sweet dopamine) has left my daily routine and become a hazy memory. More often than I run I find myself remembering fondly the last time I ran, like a highschool trackstar caressing both her first place medal and her bum knee in tandem.
Last week I performed twice. In between work, sleep, and languishing I got my ass out of bed, into a lovely outfit, and down to a performance venue to read some work. After Wednesday, another literary brawl at WriteClub Atlanta, I passed out for, earnestly, twelve hours. Upon waking, the fact that I had a second performance in a burlesque variety show a mere three days later hit me with apocalyptic force. Worse yet, I had not yet written a word of what I was slated to perform that evening. It was months ago when I applied for either show. The wolf of my hubris had all that time to whet its terrible teeth into something that could bite through my thigh.
I love performing. I get genuine energy from it. I’m convinced that it’s one of the key dozen-or-so reasons I never found any success writing longform prose or developing videogames. Too much of novel-writing or game development occur within the hermitage.
But I finally pulled it all together the morning of the show, and while I loved performing and spending time with the burlesque acts (always a wonderful thing to share space with artists of a completely different discipline than me) I knew my battery was blinking behind my eyes. I was in the red.
I have been since the end of October.
I look forward to the end of these dark days and until then, I will be John the Baptist. My dark honey and locusts will be the occasional phone calls with a girlfriend, minutes in front of my Happy Lamp (tm) or couple hours of sleep. I will await the return of my prophet. I have been avoiding everything from bible study to church to walks around the neighborhood. I am in my enclosure. I am atop my pillar. I am praying until I see the light. I know it is coming. The sun will be glorious as any savior. It will save me. It always does.
My girlfriend just met her own dawn as she finished up her latest semester at school. Her last exam was today and she celebrated with a tiny bottle of champagne, a plate of tacos, and the merciful permission to be, in her words, “a dumb bitch again.” After the way this semester has pushed her intellect and her fortitude, she deserves it.
We all do.
But until then, my ultra-loud super alarm will make sure I wake up on time.
Yours with an open mouth,
-B
PS. I’ve attached a copy of my performance piece from the Saturday Show here. Enjoy?
