This is Me

I look around and see women my age—with multiple children, demanding jobs, weekend soccer games and weekday meetings—who somehow still manage to attend book clubs, host dinner parties, keep up with TV shows, trends, texts.

Always on.Always in motion. Always with a full calendar—and fuller energy.

I, on the other hand, am perpetually exhausted.

I’ve wondered, is this a parenting phase? Is it perimenopause? Or just the weight of the vagaries of adulthood?

But I’m starting to see that this isn’t a phase. It’s my truth.

I’ve always needed more spaciousness than the world allows. Small talk leaves me hollow. Group outings take days to recover from. Even joyful things like birthday parties or café catchups make me want to crawl into my bed and nap for a whole week after.

Some evenings, I read three pages and that’s enough.

I play with my pup.

I take long, slow walks wearing my “Nope. Not today.” shirt.

I color in silence beside my daughter as the last of the sun flickers through our octogenarian backyard pine.

I’ve always preferred the lull after everyone’s gone home. The warmth of a solitary cacao mug. The comfort of my worn blanket and faded unbranded t-shirts. 

And now in acknowledging all of this I see that I’m exhausted because I cannot skim the surface.

I care. I notice. I hold. I reflect. And the world runs on shallow.

It’s taken me decades to realize that my need for stillness isn’t flawed. My resistance to rushing isn’t something to be fixed. My desire for the kind of silent presence my pup offers isn’t failure.

It’s just who I am—a person built for presence, not performance.

For fewer things, felt more deeply.

A person whose rest cycles stretch across weeks, not weekends.

A person who prefers her own quiet company to the noise of constant becoming.

Maybe you’ve always been this way, too?