The Rest We Never Knew We Needed

On exhaustion, creativity, and the art of restoration

Toward the back end of 2024, something began pressing down on me. A kind of invisible weight. Not anxiety, I’ve known that well enough to recognize its silhouette. This was different. A steady, dull pressure. Like a boot on my chest.

I was tired, constantly tired.

I did what I know. I meditated. Practiced breathwork. Visited a functional doctor. Slipped into my compression boots a few nights a week like armor against whatever this was. I even started working out more, thinking maybe it was a funk I could sweat my way out of. Nothing worked.

Worse than the fatigue was the fading. My desire to write disappeared. Creating felt like deep work. Even being around people I loved required effort. I wondered if I was becoming depressed, or just… dissolving.

I had travel coming up; back to Australia and Hong Kong. I held onto hope that being near family might feed something inside me I hadn’t realized was starving.

And then something unexpected happened.

In Australia, I started my week long artist residency, I drank three, sometimes four espressos a day. I stayed up late. My sleep was erratic.

But still, I woke with energy.

Real, raw energy. I wrote without thinking. I conspired with friends over long lunches. I walked the streets I grew up on and found myself seeing in color again.