Fatigue

Every morning, I wake up exhausted already.  It's so counterproductive.  Then today, while chatting with my former colleagues when I stopped by the old office, it dawned on me.  I'm fatigued because I have spent the past 478 days since Connor died trying my level best to be "okay."

I had no idea that this effort would be so tiring.  My body is tired.  My brain is tired.  My heart is tired.  My soul is tired.  Normally, only one of those would be tired at any given point, but I've drained myself pretty much completely dry. Why? Who am I trying to impress with my "okay-ness"?  I don't think anyone really expects me to be okay all the time but I feel this enormous pressure to be okay all the time.

And then I realize that while I may be creating that "need" to be okay, I'm acting as if it's the people around me who need me to be okay, and I'm doing it for them, and does that make me susceptible to peer pressure? Even though now that I've plotted it out in my brain, I see that it is MY own pressure, not pressure from outside, that is causing this, I still can't seem to shut it off!

How in the world do I shut it off?

I've been doing an inordinate amount of escapist reading. Every night, I read until I fall asleep and it's DRIVEL. Total crap. Anything to occupy my mind until it shuts down. I frequently wake up about 45 minutes later, remove my glasses and put my iPad down, and drift back away. Sadly, I am also frequently visited in the night my the boys, for a multitude of reasons. So I was blaming the tiredness on the late reading and perpetual interruptions of my sleep. I'm trying to stop those cycles, but I also need to address the exhaustion stemming from okayness. I'm just not certain how to get there...