Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the storm is coming or going.

Over the last few weeks I’ve struggled. Most nights I don’t sleep particularly well. It’s hard to focus, and my brain feels like it’s almost always in a fog. My last post took me a week to write, and went though five different iterations before I finally published it. Despite doing all of the things that I know help me in times of stress, little has helped.

And I’ve come to realize that the reason, or at least one reason, that things have been so hard lately is that I’m tired; burnt out from what the last two years have demanded. Since March of 2020, like so many, I‘ve just been trying to survive. Not only in the physical sense, but mentally and emotionally as well. I’ve focused on just getting through: To hospitals not being overwhelmed. To case numbers and casualties falling. To the latest viral wave subsiding. To the arrival of a vaccine. To my kids being vaccinated. Each carrying its own promise of a return to what we used to know as normal, only to have that promise yanked away.

I tend to be the person in a crisis who can keep a level head. When things go south I’m usually the one you’ll find tending to everyone else, and figuring out the way forward. It’s just how I’m built, how I cope. I can turn off the panic, the fear, the emotion, and I go into triage mode. Then, when it’s all over and the dust settles, I crash. When the chaos subsides and I know my people are safe, it’s then that I let myself fall apart; I finally begin to process it all, I grieve, I rest, and I care for myself.

But the dust hasn’t settled, and the chaos has yet to subside. For 22 months now I’ve been coping, without a break to fall apart. For 22 months I’ve been operating in triage mode. Like many I’m not just tired, I’m exhausted.

And that’s why I share this here. Because I know I’m not alone in that, not by a long shot. The New York Times published an article just a few days ago titled Why 1,320 Therapists Are Worried About Mental Health in America Right Now. Many of those I’m closest to have been candid about going through similar. I see it on social media. I’ve seen it on the faces of strangers. We’re all burnt out. We’re all exhausted. Maybe you’ve seen it too. Maybe you’re even feeling it.

But somehow, it’s that knowledge that we’re all going through this together that makes it seem a little more bearable. Every time someone shares something similar I feel the smallest bit of comfort. It’s the knowing that even as many of us continue to be more isolated than we’d like, we still aren’t actually alone.

Last year when I was feeling a bit more hopeful I wrote about the light that comes after the darkness. I realize this post may sound rather bleak by comparison but believe it or not that hope is still here, albeit buried a little deeper. I know that all things end, eventually. We’ll all get through it, and I think most of us know that deep down. But of course that doesn't change the way it feels right now.

If you’re going through it too then my heart goes out to you. At least maybe now you feel a little less alone. Perhaps you can’t tell if the storm is coming or going; and that’s ok. You’re allowed to simply to stand in the rain. Just remember that the sun will come out eventually; and maybe at least for now you can find some comfort in knowing that we’re all getting drenched together.