Wake-up: 7:23 AM
In 1,670 · Out 1,945 · Net −275 · Protein 65g
7:23 AM — Woke up. Had been planning to drive into the office to sort out my rental laptop, but had the genius idea of just walking over instead, since it was pouring, dreary, and foggy out — no point dealing with a car in that.
~8:30 AM — Walked to the office, sorted the laptop rental, and walked back.
~9:30 AM — Treated myself to Chick-fil-A: a spicy chicken biscuit with cheese and egg, plus a frosted coffee on the side.
Daytime — The only real goal for the day was to get through work. I'm starting to realize I might actually be burnt out — I give all my good energy to work, and by the end of the day I'm too exhausted to do anything else. I used to just think that was life, but it's not even like I'm hyper-productive because of it. I get a lot done, sure, but I can't keep running like this indefinitely.
~11 AM — A weird thing happened. I'd had brunch with someone recently and mentioned a mutual friend was pregnant, which I'd heard secondhand. This morning that person texted me saying they'd reached out to the friend directly and were told she's not pregnant — basically implying I'd made it awkward. Honestly, reaching out to someone to fact-check something like that feels like the actual invasion of privacy here. We keep crossing wires and I genuinely don't understand where they're coming from.
~4 PM — Had my therapy session. We talked more about my background, and she introduced the idea of the "hero child." She also called me beautiful, which caught me off guard. Touched a little on dating too, though I don't think we're at solutions yet — still feels like intake. Still, it felt good to just get it out there.
~7 PM — Read my book, which was nice, and aired out the apartment.
~9 PM — Did some LF work.
~10 PM — Just relaxing now. One thing I really want to cut back on: how much time I lose to short-form videos. I want to actually use my time more intentionally.
What I realized
- What I've been calling "just how life is" might actually be burnout — giving all my energy to work and having nothing left over is a pattern, not a given.
- Being hyper-busy at work isn't the same as being effective, and it's not sustainable either way.
- Reaching out to fact-check something I mentioned in passing was the actual boundary violation today, not my sharing it — worth trusting that read.
- Naming "hero child" out loud in therapy, even without solutions yet, still counts as progress.
Debt paid: 364,484 / 617,750 — 59.00%