Today, I’m 36 years old.
I’m normally not a big birthday person. I tend to feel the same the day before as I do the day after, with very little variation or fuss. But I’ll be honest, this one seems important. It feels in some way like an airport layover, or like when the lights come up at intermission and everyone looks around at each other – “oh hey! I forgot there were other people here!”
Ten years ago, I was just coming out of a rough first trimester with my first child. I had just gotten married, just graduated from law school, and just realized that riding off into the sunset was going to be a lot harder than I thought. While I was 26, I gave birth to that baby, got my first real attorney job, and have spent the last ten years feeling like I’m tumbling downhill, picking up speed and bouncing over rocks and stumps, faster and faster and faster. Sometimes the speed felt good. Sometimes the tumble felt like progress, even though any time I caught my breath, I’d remember that I was falling.
Then came last winter.
In November, I completed the biggest challenge of my career. I had never felt more confident in my skills. I was working 20 hour days, producing more work and feeling better about it than maybe I ever had. The project ended, leaving me wrung out and exhausted. And then my little boy brought home the flu. He was better in three days, but shortly thereafter, I got sick. And because I had nothing in the tank, the flu turned into pneumonia. I’ve never been that sick. Three weeks of fighting for breath, pulling muscles from coughing, needing oxygen and supplemental fluids and steroids.
And all that time, I was trying to work.
Right now, three months later, I know this was crazy, and self-destructive. While I’m being a little vague about the nature of my work, let’s just say I’m not a neurosurgeon or in charge of matters of national security. But due to a confluence of external pressure and internal drive, I felt that I had no choice but to try and push through, continue to produce, and pour more out of my cup. Except that cup was beyond empty. Finally, I broke. I begged my boss for relief. When I came back to work, I looked around like I had never really seen my office before. Because I had to reckon with what I had done to myself, or allowed to happen to myself.
So here we are. I’m 36. I’m exhausted, and burned out, and realizing that I had launched myself down this mountain ten years ago. And I find myself with a lot to say about the view from here, and about what I’m doing to move on from here.
Consider the Days 