Sometimes I feel like my whole life is a loop I can’t escape:
work → school → exhaustion → guilt → repeat.
Even with just one in-person class, the day already feels doomed before it starts.
On “school days,” I wake up knowing I won’t get any real rest. I’m either on my feet at work or mentally bracing myself for another night of trying to be a student with nothing left in the tank. It’s like my week never has a true pause button — just different flavors of tired. I keep trying to be happy but I’m not taking the time to put into myself and my well-being because school, work, and my relationship keep taking priority.
And honestly… it doesn’t help that I’m a perfectionist who stresses about everything. If I can’t do it perfectly, I push myself harder. And when I can’t push, I shut down. There’s never any room to just… be human.
And somewhere along the way, I realized:
I didn’t just fall behind — I disappeared from my own life.
I didn’t even get to enjoy my wedding. I got so hyperfixated on planning it, managing it, making it perfect, that when the actual day arrived… I was too exhausted to experience it. It’s like I keep living moments I should be savoring from behind glass, watching myself rush through them.
I said I wanted to do pinup full time. I made two posts on my Bunny Bouffant Instagram and then… nothing. I joined a new church and couldn’t even show up for the first service I was invited to. I keep trying to build a life I want, but I never have the energy to actually live it.
So yeah… I fell behind.
I missed assignments.
I stopped going.
And in the quietest way possible, I basically dropped this semester without meaning to.
It’s not the first time I’ve done this. This pattern is familiar — painfully familiar. Because I don’t have energy. I don’t have time for myself. Every time I try to show up fully, something else demands all of me first.
And the truth is… I already addressed this in my last posts. Crossroads was me realizing things were breaking. Halfway to Hope was me admitting I needed change. This one is me finally saying out loud what I’ve been avoiding:
I need a break. A real one.
I’m already planning to leave my job at the end of the year so I can start doing school full-time again. And maybe this accidental semester off is the universe forcing me to do what I kept refusing to give myself — a moment to catch my breath, to reset, to remember what it feels like to not be stretched thin every single day. I need to step out of survival mode long enough to actually be the student I want to be. Or the person I want to be at all.
Because right now…
I want to be happy and positive so badly. I want to feel like I’m building something, moving toward something. But I don’t know what the next steps are. I don’t know how to make time for myself when every corner of my life has a “priority” sticker slapped on it.
And in the quiet places of my mind, I still have those thoughts I talked about before — that urge to just give up, run away, start over somewhere new. But I’ve done too much work to start from scratch again. I’ve clawed my way too far.
I just need to breathe.
I need to rest.
I need to stop burning the candle from both ends and pretending the flame doesn’t hurt.
Maybe this isn’t a failure.
Maybe this is a pause.
Maybe this is the moment I choose me for once.
And maybe… that’s the first real step forward.
