The Struggle Is Real(ity)

It’s been a roller coaster of feelings and emotion this past week. As I wrote earlier about my manager leaving, last Friday was his last day. My sadness and melancholy hadn’t diminished, and as he messaged me early Friday to wish me well, I felt a sense of loss.

Much like I wrote before, I’m not sure why I feel this way. People have come and gone my entire life. Nothing new, and even when growing up, because my parents moved around a lot (not for work or military, mostly just because), I never went to the same school for more than two years.

So, while the only constant in the universe is change, it’s also very much a constant in my world as well. And this is why I struggle to pinpoint the source of my sadness at the moment. My manager and I weren’t pals outside of work. We lived and worked in two different states, and we always kept a professional and respectful relationship and distance. It just worked.

Now, all is not lost with my world, I got some very good news this weekend regarding my children. So, I’m very relieved and excited about that. However, I feel like coming to work is a struggle, and everything about it is something I wish I could put away for a bit.

There’s a holiday this month, and I’ll be taking an extra day off to make it an even longer weekend. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to last long enough to be able to enjoy it. Right now, it’s an internal fight with myself every day to get out of bed, and actually do my best.

Having been through some real challenging times in my life, I know I can do this. I’ve proven to myself that I can do this, as I’ve persevered through much worse, and so many other times. Thing is, I’m tired. I’m tired of being the strong one. The reliable one. The always gets it done no matter what one. I want to for once allow myself to be “good enough”, mediocre, perhaps even, just average.

This does’t mean I have a high view of myself, hardly. I’m just average and mediocre at many, many things. However, I work and I strive to be more than that. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t, but the work is always hard. And for always feeling like I at least have to keep trying to be the best at everything, I just want to collapse and let myself just stop trying for once.

Maybe the long holiday weekend will do more for my spirit and my soul than I realized.

Image credit // Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash