The Dishes in the Sink
Maybe I was running. Maybe you are too.
I didn’t plan to walk away from my life.
But last June, that’s exactly what I did.
I packed up and moved to Colorado.
Away from everything familiar. Everything I had built. Everything I thought defined me.
And I spent the better part of a year doing something I hadn’t done in a very long time.
I paid attention to myself.
What I found wasn’t pretty.
I found a woman who believed her feelings didn’t matter to others.
Who felt like too much and not enough at the same time.
Who assumed the worst the moment someone seemed upset with her.
Who felt guilty when someone showed her care, because some part of her didn’t believe she deserved it.
I found someone who had been running so hard and so long that she didn’t even know what stopped looked like.
I also found her signs.
The ones that show up right before everything unravels.
My kitchen gets messy. The laundry piles up. I stop working out. I avoid responding to emails. I disconnect from friends. I get short and grouchy. I say things I don’t mean. I avoid being healthy altogether.
That’s what my burnout looks like.
Not a dramatic breakdown. A bathroom that needs cleaning and a phone full of unanswered messages and a version of me that nobody, including me, actually likes very much.
I’m recovering from shoulder surgery right now.
Slowing down isn’t optional. And in that forced stillness, I’ve been writing letters to myself in my journal.
Letters I probably should have written years ago.
One of them said this:
You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be all things to be seen. Those who love and care about you want you to be the best version of yourself. And that person, the one who is healthy, happy, takes care of herself, she shines. Her light inspires. It motivates.
I cried when I wrote it.
Because I knew it was true. And I knew I had spent years hiding her.
Here’s what else I learned.
When I feel myself escalating, the answer is never to push through.
The answer is to go back to basics.
A walk outside. Sunlight on my face. Music. Movement. Letting myself cry. Texting someone I trust and telling them how I actually feel.
And what to avoid when I’m already on the edge?
Big decisions. Large projects. Doom scrolling. Anything that feels productive but is really just me trying to outrun myself again.
Now let me ask you something.
Because your burnout has a face too. It has tells. And once you know them, you stop being blindsided by yourself.
Take a look at these questions and sit with them honestly.
Is your burnout taking over your life?
Is your home environment reflecting how you feel inside right now?
Are you avoiding the people who love you most, or finding reasons not to connect?
Are you getting short or irritable with people over things that normally wouldn’t bother you?
Are you skipping the healthy habits you know make you feel better?
Are you avoiding decisions, emails, or responsibilities you normally handle with ease?
Do you feel like you’re too much for others, or that your feelings don’t really matter?
Are you assuming the worst in situations before you even have all the information?
Do you feel like if you can’t do something perfectly, there’s no point in doing it at all?
Are you receiving care or support from others and feeling like you don’t deserve it?
If you answered yes to more than a few of those, this isn’t a sign of weakness.
It’s a signal.
And signals are meant to be listened to.
I don’t think you need to move to Colorado to figure this out.
But I do think you need to stop long enough to look.
Because here’s what I wrote to myself on a quiet night when I finally got still enough to hear it:
When you feel like you are not enough, do the simple things that bring you back to yourself.
Let the sunlight shine on your face. Move your body. Place your feet in water and sand. Being in and around nature is where your soul renews.
And when your soul renews, you find your motivation again.
You are enough.
You have always been enough.
You just need to slow down long enough to remember it.
If you read this and thought “she’s describing my life,” I want you to know that’s not an accident.
This is the work. And I’d love to do it with you.
Reply and tell me where you are. I have a feeling we should talk.
— Tracy