Tiredness ― as if the tidal waves of the sea recede away from my body to leave me empty; to leave me like a beach without seashells, without all of the other creatures that walk or creep on the ground where I lay.

I feel tired… a word that I despise to utter; for why should I feel tired? Why am I even tired? I don’t want to feel tired, I don’t want to let the interesting happenings in life slip away from my hands ― I want to remain energetic, vivacious, full of life, conscious.

In the waking hours I want to be able to hop all day like a little frog; I don’t want to be crushed under the weight of fatigue, to have my energy being depleted by the excesses of living… so many things I miss in the world when I’m tired, sleeping.

I know that my body automatically shuts itself down when my energy is low, or when I’ve expended, used, or burned more energy than I have, and where the consequences of persisting, and not listening to my body, often lead to burnouts and to the incapacity of functioning at my best.

Even the effort of thinking about what to write use up my energy. I try to disconnect as much as I can in a day ― close my eyes and think of nothing, or even take a nap so as to reenergise my being, but still, if I’m way too tired I’ll doze off automatically in front of the television, when I’m reading, or even when I’m listening to music.

I’m so mentally and physically active during the day that as soon as I put my head on the pillow I enter deep sleep ― I like to think that my body is more aware than my mind is.

But I also feel tired when I didn’t have a good night sleep, which most of the time is caused by drinking stimulants like tea, coffee, alcohol, medicines after 5p.m, or going to bed after an agitated day.

I always rely on a good night sleep to feel refresh, energetic, and refilled with the type of energy that will keep me going all day long. But some times, and I don’t know exactly why, but I wake up tired, drained, and sluggish, as if I was active during my sleep, in my dreams.

Tiredness is in fact the signal that I should relax, slow down, or stop before burning out completely, or even that there’s something wrong going on with my health… I know that… but then, what will happen to all of my chores? Things will stagnate, my house will look like a mess, and I won’t be happy if I’m all the time tired, lagging, dysfunctional.  

That’s when I gently talk to my body, to tell it that we have a whole day to remain active, and that when night comes, we’ll sleep and recover from the fatigue of the day.