I used to think there was an ‘optimal’ way of being sick: not sick enough to feel terrible or be knocked out flat, yet sick enough to be able to justify taking time off work and not feel guilty about it. But this morning, when I woke up still exhausted and feeling the vestiges of the anxiety that hit me late last night, I wondered why I thought that way. Is it really so self-indulgent, so sinful, to need time for myself, whatever the reason might be? Is being actually physically ill the only acceptable excuse?

Last night, when I started feeling anxious after I received some unwelcome news, and this morning, when it felt like a struggle to get out of bed, I felt a little ashamed of having both the jitters and lethargy. I’m no longer working at the frenetic pace that I used to; at the end of last year I made the conscious decision to cut things back and allow myself more breathing room. I don’t cram my days with tasks anymore, and often feel like I’m working less than I’ve ever done in my professional life. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, it’s reached the point where I’ve even started worrying that I’ve gone too far in the other direction and am doing too little. The news that I received, too, isn’t likely to have that much of a direct effect on me. So, if things are as easy as they could be, why would I be tired and anxious like this?

I’m finding my recent blog posts have got quite repetitive. I’m just circling around the same themes of anxiety, burn-out and a quest for equilibrium. I make some progress, then have moments where I have to come back to where I was and work through the same things in my head once again. I suppose this makes for rather boring reading for other people (sorry), but for me, it’s a realisation that the work of healing and thriving is not a ‘one and done’ business, but a continuing process that might never—actually, most likely will never—come to an end (until death, after which it’s all quite moot). I might be doing much better day-to-day now, but the vestiges of past experiences remain, and it’s not so easy to just shake them off. Being okay with this, and having the patience to give myself the time to go through it, is one more thing that I have to learn.