Fatigue Told Me I Didn't Love This Anymore. It Lied

Lesson Learned: Before You Give Up, Go Lie Down

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Fatigue had me question every thing

Before You Give Up, Go Lie Down

What the last 48 hours taught me about fatigue, desire, and the dangerous decisions we make when our internal battery is dead.

This weekend, I considered giving up my Substack.

Not taking a little break. Not publishing less frequently. Giving it up.

I also questioned whether I wanted to paint anymore.

My daughter sent me a care package containing bright-colored markers with matching pens for doodling. There was a time when a box of color would have delighted me. I looked at them, felt absolutely nothing, and put them away in my studio.

Later, I stood in front of my easel and thought about the woman I used to be. The woman who could not wait to get her hands into the paint and play with color.

Where had she gone?

I wasn’t interested in reading. I wasn’t interested in painting. I wasn’t interested in developing an idea. I wasn’t even interested in taking a nap.

I was just done.

I began wondering whether the things that had animated my life had finally run their course.

That is what fatigue does when it becomes deep enough.

Fatigue is a sneaky little bastard.

It does not always announce itself with yawning and heavy eyelids. Sometimes it disguises itself as disillusionment. It tells you that you no longer care.It whispers that the thing you built has reached its natural conclusion.

It makes a temporary lack of energy feel like a permanent loss of desire.

And if we believe it, we can begin making permanent decisions from temporary depletion.

I Had Not Done “Nothing”

When I looked back at the previous week, the defense decided to present its evidence.

Two Breakthrough gatherings held. Articles written and published. New T-shirts created and launched. Ideas generated, people answered, decisions made, numbers watched, and the countless little details required to keep a publication alive, tended to, one after another.

I had also spent a couple of hours sitting on the patio with my friend Greg.

That was delightful. It was also an enormous expenditure of energy.

For me, two hours of social interaction can be Niagara Falls. It does not matter that I enjoy the person. Enjoyment does not make social energy free.

Love does not make it free either.

I had been counting only the things that looked like exertion and completely ignoring the cost of everything else.

Because I had not run a marathon or dug a ditch, some part of me decided I had no legitimate reason to be exhausted.

Apparently, running a Substack publication, holding two gatherings, launching merchandise, carrying on conversations, generating ideas, and being socially available did not count.

Mercy.

I keep expecting my body to produce the energy I had years ago. I particularly noticed after COVID that I could no longer do as much in one day. Now I am approaching seventy-one, still trying to tend to my health and live a creative life, while quietly expecting myself to operate as though my energy supply has never changed.

I like to think I am Superwoman.

I am not.

I Finally Stopped Trying to Rescue the Day

Over the weekend, I did something that remains surprisingly difficult for me.

I stopped.

I did not force myself to write an article. I did not try to generate enthusiasm. I did not turn my lack of interest into another problem to solve.

I allowed the day to be quiet.

Every now and then, a thought came to me and I posted it. I enjoyed doing that because the thought had arrived naturally. I had not chased it down, wrestled it to the ground, and demanded that it earn its keep.

Late Sunday afternoon, I felt an impulse to move my body. I did some deep squats, side twists, arm lifts, and knee exercises.

It took nearly the entire day for my body to come online, but eventually it did.

The important thing is that I did not take that flicker of returning energy as proof that I needed to squeeze more productivity out of the day.

I told myself:

I refuse to spend tomorrow’s energy today.

Then I slept.

First for two hours. Then for five hours. Then for another two hours.

On Monday morning, I woke up rested.

Not rested enough to run a marathon. Let’s not get carried away.

But I woke up with something I had not possessed all weekend.

Clarity.

I was not suddenly one hundred percent charged. I would estimate about eighty percent. But the questions that had felt so enormous and final over the weekend no longer felt final.

Maybe I had not stopped loving my Substack.

Maybe I was tired.

Maybe I had not stopped being a painter.

Maybe I was tired.

Maybe my curiosity had not abandoned me.

Maybe I was too depleted to feel it.

What Are You About to Give Up Because You Need to Rest?

I wonder how often women make enormous decisions while completely depleted.

Maybe you think you no longer enjoy gardening, but you have been caring for everyone else all week.

Maybe you want to quit the class you were excited to take, but you scheduled it in the middle of six other obligations.

Maybe the trip you dreamed about suddenly feels dreadful because you planned every detail and left yourself no room to breathe.

Maybe you think you have lost your ambition when your body is simply asking you to stop spending energy you do not possess.

Maybe you have not lost the dream.

Maybe you are too tired to feel it.

We are quick to interpret a loss of enthusiasm as a message about the thing itself.

Perhaps this friendship has run its course.

Perhaps I do not want to write anymore.

Perhaps I have outgrown painting.

Perhaps I need an entirely new direction.

Sometimes that may be true.

But sometimes the truth is much less dramatic.

Sometimes you need to go lie down.

Not for twenty minutes while mentally reviewing everything you should be doing.

Not while scrolling through your phone and filling your mind with other people’s noise.

Not while using rest as a waiting room before the next round of productivity.

I mean surrendering. Powering down. Allowing your brain and body to stop until they decide they are ready to rejoin you.

There Is a Difference Between Being Adrift and Being Depleted

When we cannot begin something, we often assume we need discipline, structure, motivation, or a better plan.

Sometimes we do.

An enormous project can become easier when we reduce it to the smallest possible action. Don’t paint the picture. Put one tube of paint on the table. Don’t clean the entire room. Pick up one thing.

There’s an old line about how you eat an elephant — one bite at a time.In other words, don’t let the ginormity of the task at hand overcome you. This is where you take the wheel, this is the moment you regain control of your own life.

But there are other times when even one bite is too much because we are not directionless. We are depleted.

Those are not the same condition.

One may need a tiny beginning.

The other may need a goddamn chair.

The challenge is learning to tell the difference before we start prescribing ourselves another routine, system, checklist, or improvement project.

If curiosity is present but the project feels overwhelming, take one tiny step.

If curiosity itself has disappeared, perhaps the first step is no step at all.

Perhaps the answer is rest.

I Am Not Returning to the Same Pace

It would be easy to take Monday morning’s returning clarity as permission to go right back to doing everything that exhausted me.

That would be a spectacular way to waste the lesson.

So I am changing the shape of my publication.

I will publish articles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

That is enough.

If I create something between those days, it will be because I genuinely want to, not because I am frightened that everything will disappear if I stop feeding it for twelve minutes.

The podcast I record with my friend Mike can wait until August. I am finished recording for July.

Until I can create a larger buffer that allows me to take a proper extended break, I am going to protect my weekends as time to power down.

I am also going to begin counting social interaction as an expenditure of energy, even when it is wonderful. I cannot keep pretending that only unpleasant things cost me something.

I am going to stop waiting until my brain and body stage a full-scale rebellion before I grant myself permission to rest.

Before I Believe the Fatigue

I do not know yet whether I want to paint.

I am not going to demand an answer from myself today.

The paint will still be there when my energy returns. So will the markers. So will the books I have not read and the ideas I have not written.

Anything that truly belongs to me will survive my resting.

I am not Superwoman, although I have rather enjoyed believing otherwise.

I am a seventy-year-old woman with a full, creative, meaningful life and a finite supply of energy.

I can use that energy beautifully.

I cannot pretend it is endless.

Rest should not have to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

So before I give up something I love, I am going to rest.

Before I decide the dream is dead, I am going to rest.

Before I confuse exhaustion with truth, I am going to rest.

Forty-two cents an article. That’s what an annual membership works out to this month, discount included — 20% off $65, still less than a candy bar buys three times a week.

Here’s the honest part: we pay more attention to what costs us something than to what arrives free. I didn’t write that rule. That’s just how we’re built.

So if this is worth 42 cents to you, join while the discount holds.

Either way, go rest today too.

And if something in this piece made you pause, nod, or feel a little less alone — please give it a heart before you go. That one small tap tells the algorithm this conversation matters. It puts these words in front of another woman who needs to hear them today. She's out there. Help me find her.

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