When I was about 12, I met a boy through a friend who had transferred to my school the year before. Our entire relationship played out, as they do in middle school, over the phone. He called me Pop Tart, and he introduced me to The Misfits, and we started leaving secret notes for each other in our away messages while we were at school. And while he was never my “boyfriend” (whatever that meant in middle school), we shared that kind of frenetic intimacy that you can only have when you’re 12 and you’re talking to a boy mainly on the phone and over AIM — never face-to-face.
One day after we’d been talking for a few weeks, I told him how terrified I was of dying. My grandfather had passed away when I was nine, and I still found myself unable to sleep some nights. I’d have nightmares of meteors smashing into the earth, obliterating everyone and everything I’d love. I’d lay awake and try to imagine what it would be like to be dead, picturing myself in a black room, unable to reach anyone, for all of eternity.
He listened to me, and then he told me about how he’d learned in science class that Albert Einstein said that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and how that helped him get over his fear of death. “Our brains run on energy, right,” he explained to me with 13-year-old bravado through the tinny connection of our landlines. “So when you die, that energy has to go somewhere, right? That’s why I believe in some kind of afterlife. You live on in some way through that energy.” I felt very comforted by that idea, and I continued to, long after our intimate chats stopped and I grew up.
I still think about that conversation, probably at least once a month, but lately it’s been more. Not because the death obsession of my adolescence has returned (knock wood), but because I have been feeling incredibly depleted recently, and I’ve been wondering where all my energy has “gone.”
There’s a lot going on in my life — some things that I have been open about (like the wedding) and other things I haven’t been so open about. Suffice to say I’ve been a little overextended and overstimulated, bordering on burnout, and yet trying to keep as many balls in the air as possible. I still want to be there for my friends. I still want to go out for dinner with coworkers. I still want to make sure I’m pitching in with cleaning the apartment, and being the best partner I can be to my fiancé. This has been my modus operandi forever, but I never really saw the issue with it until recently, when my overflowing plate started to topple over.
I’ve been coming home after work so drained that my evenings have mostly been spent sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone. I haven’t had the energy to do anything else — no attention span to pay attention to a movie, no will to read one of the many books I’ve been piling up on my nightstand. I’ve not wanted to write. I’ve not wanted to talk to Ben. I’ve just wanted to zone out and scroll.
One night, I was rotting on the couch with no plans to get up until 10 PM, so Ben decided to go into his office and work on a personal project. It’s something he does often, and is something that I have always admired about him — his ability to prioritize his creativity in ways that aren’t meant to be monetized. He just goes into his office and works on creating just for himself, not for how it will be received.
I started wondering why I had never been like that — why I didn’t choose to just go to my computer and write after dinner instead of scrolling on my phone or rewatching Love is Blind for the 18th time. And I think I’ve finally uncovered the reason. I am so concerned with checking in on everyone and everything else in my life that, when I’m done, I have zero energy left for myself. I’m so concerned with being the perfect employee, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend, that I spend all of my energy externally and don’t save any for the internal work. That perfectionism that has been permeating my life (and my writing, if you haven’t noticed) is why I haven’t been sleeping, and why I don’t know what my hobbies are anymore. I expend so much energy simply existing that there is none left when it comes time for me to take care of myself.
That’s really depressing. I have somehow gotten it in my head that self-care is selfish, not vital to keeping myself happy. When did this happen? When did I internalize the idea that I was only meant to live for others, and not for myself?
But most importantly: What would my life look like if I saved some of that energy for myself?
So that is my new north star, my new raison d’être: Figuring out how to conserve enough of my energy that I can keep myself running. And not just running — happy.
I’ve started by implementing a no phone rule after 6 PM. This is part of a larger shift in my trying to break up with my phone, which I will be writing about in a later newsletter. But the TL;DR: is that the phone is leading to a larger issue with stimulation and comparison within me, and so I’m trying to break that habit. Plus, I never feel good after just scrolling on my phone like a blob, and that can be hard to remember when you’re burnt out.
We’ve also started to experiment with having a few nights a week where we do an activity with zero screens. This past week, we sat at the table and listened to records and I did a puzzle while Ben sketched. It was *so* incredibly fun and relaxing, and that night was the first night I slept like a baby in weeks.
And finally, I’m really trying to get better about pausing before I say “yes” to something, or before I offer to do something for someone. It’s a hard habit to break, because I always want to be agreeable, and I want to be helpful, and I’ve got it in my head that nobody will like me if I’m not giving 1000% of myself away.
I don’t know how I will measure success with this little experiment of mine. Maybe I will consider it a success when I finally, finally write the book I have been talking about for years. Maybe I will feel successful when I say “no” to a plan and don’t feel immense guilt over it. But for now, I just want to sleep through the night. That will be my first marker of success.
I’ll let you know how that goes.