I have recently decided that I need to completely change my life. This happens occasionally, usually when I'm tired, though I never realise I'm tired at the time. Instead, I become utterly convinced that my entire existence is fundamentally, irredeemably wrong. It usually starts quite innocently while I'm sitting on the sofa scrolling through my phone: I don't like my routine, I don't think I like my wardrobe, why is my house like this, and is this actually the career I want? Before I've even finished my cup of tea, I've mentally resigned from my job, moved to Cornwall, and developed an entirely new personality.
She wears linen. She gets up early. She knows how to make sourdough. She probably owns a ceramic butter dish, and she has never once eaten toast over the sink. I'm not entirely sure who this woman is, but she seems to have her life together, while I am still wearing yesterday's pyjama bottoms. This is how I know something has gone wrong, not with my life, but with my brain. Because there is a particular kind of tiredness that doesn't feel like tiredness at all. It feels like profound dissatisfaction.
Suddenly, everything becomes irritating. The house feels cluttered, your clothes look wrong, your job feels wrong, and your hobbies aren't interesting anymore. You start looking at estate agent listings despite having absolutely no intention of moving, mentally redesigning rooms you don't even own. You consider becoming a person who goes hiking, even though you don't like hiking, convincing yourself that perhaps you've just never tried it with the correct walking boots. You find a house with a wood burner and think about it with the terrifying seriousness of someone making an important financial decision.
This is usually the point at which I should recognise I need to sleep. Instead, I design a rigorous new morning routine. I'll get up at 6:00 AM, drink water, stretch, journal, meditate, go for a walk, and become the sort of person who doesn't immediately check her phone. I hate her already, but by the end of the evening, I have created an entirely new life for myself on paper. Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow I will be organised, productive, and eat vegetables.
Then I go to bed. I sleep, not even particularly well, just enough, and a few hours later I wake up, blink, and think: Actually, things are probably fine.
This is deeply inconvenient, because now I have to admit that the dramatic personal transformation I spent the previous evening planning was perhaps entirely unnecessary. My career is still the same, my wardrobe is still the same, my kitchen is still the same, I have not moved to Cornwall, and the linen remains unworn. Everything seems considerably less catastrophic, which raises an uncomfortable question: how often do I interpret being tired as being unhappy? How often do I interpret needing a break as needing a completely new life?
We are constantly being encouraged to optimise ourselves, our routines, our diets, our sleep, and our productivity. When you're tired, it's very easy to look at the gap between your actual life and the impossibly polished version you've been shown online and decide that the problem must be you. You need a fresh start. You need to move to Cornwall and buy a linen shirt.
Or perhaps you just need some water, a sandwich, and approximately nine hours of sleep.
We underestimate how dramatically exhaustion can alter our perspective. When you're tired, a small problem becomes an existential crisis; an untidy room becomes evidence that you've lost control, and a bad mood turns into is this who I am now? It is remarkable how quickly the human brain can turn "I haven't slept properly" into "I need to completely reinvent myself."
Sometimes the answer isn't a career change or a lifestyle overhaul. Sometimes your house isn't making you unhappy, you just haven't sat down all day. Sometimes you don't need to move to Cornwall; you just need to go outside, put your phone somewhere you can't reach it, and take a nap. The new life can wait, the linen can wait, and Cornwall isn't going anywhere.
Probably. Although that house with the wood burner was very nice.