How Do You Spell Exhausted?

Cooked. Baked. Done. Spent.

Exhausted. Stressed. Overwhelmed.

At the end of your rope.

All out of steam.

Nothing left to give.

In essence…burned out.

Ever feel like this? I know we all do, at one point or another, we all reach a level of too much to do in too little time and we just can’t seem to catch our breath long enough to recharge our batteries.

I am about 12 days away from this point.

No, seriously, I can time it exactly.

Because every year, around this time, is hectic, insane, overwhelmingly busy for me.

See, every year, on Thanksgiving weekend, I help to run a youth retreat. This is a pretty involved retreat, with weeks and weeks of prep work leading up to the weekend itself.

I have been in meetings since late summer, and this coming Sunday is our final prep meeting.

Next week, is crunch time. Along with my work’s monthly Board meeting, and Thanksgiving, I will also be finalizing all the little odds and ends necessary before heading off to the retreat center on Friday afternoon.

The weekend itself will be exhausting, very little sleep will be had, and emotions will likely run high all weekend long.

And on Monday, November 29th, exactly 11 days from today…I will collapse.

But here’s the thing…I wouldn’t change it for the world. Every year around this time I ask myself “why do I do this to myself?” The month of November is crazy enough as it is, with the approaching holidays, and to throw all this other stuff into it…well, we must be crazy.

We are crazy. But there is no better feeling than to know that our sacrifice is for the best cause there is. For our youth and for our faith. How could we not be glad in that?

On that Monday, when I am feeling the burn out, when I am sleeping in (because I’ve learned to take that Monday of work after many years of doing this), recovering, attempting to recharge my batteries before the craziness of Christmas ensues…I will also be feeling fulfilled. Enlightened. Blessed. Loved.

The stress, the anxiety, the feeling of overwhelmedness is real. But so is the anticipation, the excitement and the amazing feeling of knowing that this is the absolute right thing to do with my energy, my time, my everything.

This post is a response to one of Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop Prompts.