Reflection

My Year in Haiku: 2025

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2025 was the year I burned out. Utterly and completely in ways I might never recover from, given my inability to take the kind of rest I’d need to begin the process, much less complete it. It was also the year I made the most friends I’ve made in years, the year I connected to a new sense of community–something I’ve been withering away for the want of for a long time–and the year I finally admitted to myself, if no one else other than my therapist, that I had crossed a line somewhere and wasn’t sure I could find my way back. It was a bad year for a lot of reasons personal, professional, emotional, economically, politically, and so many more I haven’t the energy to summon to mind, let alone write out. I also found something I’m good at and am getting recognized for, and truly learned the lesson that no amount of positive input is going to make up for how burned out I was and still am. I can’t work through burnout. I can’t reprioritize around it. I can’t realign myself (specifically) to minimize it. And all I’ve got to show for working myself to that point is the knowledge that the instant I let up on the pressure I’m applied to myself, all of my coworkers started complaining to my boss about how little work it seemed like I was doing. Work that wasn’t my job, that they had taken for granted I would continue doing once the project was done, but work that someone needed to be doing and they decided it had to be me since I’d stepped up when that work not getting done would have burned me worst of all. It was not worth it. None of it was. And yet there’s nothing I can do about it now other than try to find some path forward that will limit any further damage. Which, you know, isn’t fixing anything. It just hopefully avoids making it worse.

(1/1)
Hope begets loss and
I cannot stand any more.
This is survival.

(1/8)
It is easier
To look away than confront
What is on my mind.

(1/14)
I change my alarm
To reflect reality…
Should I change myself?

(1/21)
Balancing my needs
Against my protective urges
Has left me frozen.

(1/26)
I wake up and go
From bed to office to bed
As a day passes.

(1/30)
Yesterday cost more
Than I was willing to pay.
What else could I do?

(1/31)
I’m losing my shit.
This dumb shit keeps happening
And I’m losing it.

(2/1)
I’ve avoided this
For my entire adult life.
Please pardon my grief.

(2/6)
Weariness claws at
My empty, echoing mind
As I look for rest.

(2/11)
I can feel my soul
Dragging through the muck and mire
Of this too-long year.

(2/20)
I still waste mornings
When my days are not dreary.
Change is not instant.

(2/23)
I feel myself yearn
For the same satisfaction
I get from this game.

(2/24)
I’m burnt to a crisp
And it gets worse every day.
I might never heal.

(2/27)
A new chance to rest
Is spoiled by people needing
Me to be present.

(2/28)
A slow start today,
But avalanches start with
a single motion.

(3/1)
My recovery
Is held captive by burnout.
Can I ever heal?

(3/4)
Burnout bringing me
To the edge of a breakdown
I cannot afford.

(3/10)
What’s left of me wears
Down to a nub while I work
One just one more step.

(3/12)
A moment of breath
Amidst the ceaseless effort.
I must carry on.

(3/19)
Another aching
Day spent trying to get rest
So I can work more.

(3/24)
Another week starts
As I struggle to get out
Of sheer exhaustion.

(3/30)
My final structure
Looms large in my afternoon.
It should be fun, though.

(4/3)
I wake each morning
In aching silence that ends
Only when I sleep.

(4/10)
My body twitches
With the perceived exhaustion
Of long-term burnout.

(4/14)
Dissatisfaction
Lingers through my time to sleep
And I watch dawn rise.

(4/18)
I needed the rest
I got these past too-short weeks.
It was not enough.

(4/21)
Rise and shine for work
So no one can tell how much
This project broke you.

(4/29)
An empty day, blank,
With little recorded thought,
As I parsed the fog

(5/1)
I woke peacefully,
But my day has stirred in me
A rage I can’t quell.

(5/5)
Even my poor dreams,
Scattered thoughts with no clear plot,
Say I need more sleep.

(5/8)
I’d be quick to leave
Everything I know behind
If given the chance

(5/9)
I can feel my bones
Collapsing under the weight
Of mere existence.

(5/12)
Am I resigned to
The need for stability
Or just scared of change?

(5/23)
Waking up feels good,
The day gets worse from then on.
I’m so fucking tired.

(5/30)
Rebuilding my life:
A ship of theseus in
More than name alone

(6/5)
I’m unravelling.
It looks like fraying until
I’ve fallen apart.

(6/6)
It’s a pity you
Feel best-served by my silence.
I’ll remember that.

(6/8)
I can’t help but feel
This could have been avoided.
My question was clear.

(6/13)
Bitterness fuels me
When all my good reasons have
Left me hollowed out.

(6/21)
This will be the end.
A decade of gaming done
In less than six months.

(6/22)
Sweating distraction
Logged in to occupy space
While my mind’s elsewhere.

(6/26)
Low expectations
Gird me for battle against
Today’s nothingness.

(7/7)
My spirit broken,
My burnout worse than ever…
Just one more summer.

(7/25)
I am restless not
Because I cannot rest but
From fear of stillness.

(7/31)
Burning my candle
Until all that remains is
Smoke stains on the wall.

(8/5)
He scares me more than
A Scammer’s threat ever could.
Twisted irony.

(8/8)
A slow morning turns
To bubbling anger as I
Fight capitalism.

(8/8)
I want you to know
Apria Healthcare sucks ass.
Fucking burn it down

(8/10)
My day defies words.
I scrape the empty barrel
Just to make a sound.

(8/19)
Is it the burnout
Or all the insomnia?
Turns out that it’s both.

(8/25)
Is there no escape
From the bullshit slop machines?
It makes my soul burn.

(8/28)
Hard won victory
Will carry me through the day.
I don’t want to work.

(8/31 – late)
It was the first time
I did not think about who
I would not hear from.

(9/9)
Sore muscles, blisters,
And too little sleep make for
Such a tiring day.

(9/13)
Yesterday’s anger
Smolders like coals in my heart
As I acquiesce.

(9/18)
Time bends for the worse
And my carefully planned days
Arrive in a mess

(9/29)
A return to work
Is greeted with all the dread
Of a slow nightmare.

(10/5)
Today, I finish
A journey I just began.
Has it been nine months?

(10/7)
The drive I once felt
To write and make and play hard
Has burned itself out.

(10/14)
You would think after
Ten years I’d stop scheduling
Morning therapy…

(10/14)
I can’t help but wish
That you were already dead
So I could mourn you.

(10/14)
Instead, I am trapped,
Caught grieving for the living
Who can’t care for me.

(10/14)
If you haunted me,
Then I could exorcise you
And begin to heal.

(10/14)
Instead, my heart bleeds
With every letter they send
And I can’t forget.

(10/22)
A new letter sent
In a familiar refrain
I thought I’d finished.

(10/27)
An attempt was made.
Returning to bed won out
And I’ve given up.

(10/28)
I can’t hide from it
Now that I’ve said it out loud.
Something has to change.

(11/6)
Pinning my hope on
An evening with my friends
Was unwise to do

(11/9)
I don’t want to sleep.
I want to avoid thinking
As long as I can.

(11/10)
All that happened once
Will repeat as we refuse
To learn from the past.

(11/14)
Am I paranoid
When I’m proven right again?
This brings me no joy.

(11/17)
I don’t want to say
That I was right to worry,
But I was so right.

(11/27)
I am so thankful
That I get to spend today
With people I love.

(12/2)
I am cratering.
I can’t afford to be sick,
But that’s not my choice.

(12/6)
I’m a goop monster.
All I want is some relief,
But goop’s all I get.

(12/9)
I need a minute.
Could everything please just stop
So I can catch up?

(12/12)
A five alarm fire
Landed in my lap and I’m
Already burned out.

(12/17)
It’s never ending.
There will always be more work
Than I can get done.

(12/??)
Time slips away as
I vanish into my rest.
Days have no meaning.

On The Otherside Of Sickness

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After a year of burnout, physical exhaustion, worsening mental health, and pushing my limits as much as I could, my body gave up on me. I was taken down not by Covid, the flu, or even that time I had E. Coli. It was the common cold that laid me low and while I was able to keep working through most of it, I definitely did not like doing that. Couldn’t even let myself rest while I was so stuffed up I’d go into my bathroom to steam out my sinuses at least twice a day, just to keep things manageable (nothing else was sufficient). Capitalism and modern society demands that, and going into the office today (the day I’m writing this), regardless of whose health it risks, since I am not in such a comfortable position that I can afford to take more days off in-between the holidays (or I could, but then I’d need to work during the holidays). I managed to mitigate the worst of it by putting in a hard day’s work while I was only mildly feverish (or not feverish at all while the acetominophen was working) so I could work from home the subsequent two days, but it was still not great. This is the sickest I’ve been in years. Even that time I got the flu (made more mild by my vaccination) a few years back and spent two days semi-conscious on my couch watching the freely available seasons of Pokemon on Amazon until they somehow turned into the Emperor’s New Groove on repeat was less bad than this. At least that passed [this post is going up on day 14 of me being sick, though now my ears are clogged and my brain’s still a little fuzzy rather than the “standard” cold symptoms I still had when I wrote this]. At least the medicine I had available worked. This cold, though? Nothing really helped for long and my last five days have been an endless cycle of soothing mitigations as I dealt with one symptom at a time until I somehow got a decent couple hours of coherence and decongestion before it all came back.

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I’ve Had A Lot Of Time To Think Lately

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I don’t normally have a bunch of time where I’m not actively engaged in doing something. That’s an active choice I’m making, generally speaking. I’ve spent my whole life managing my anxiety and depression by keeping myself constantly busy with one thing or another so there’s no room in my mind for them to occupy. Music or podcasts while I drive, cook, and do chores. Books or TV while I eat. Video games when I’m free. Endlessly scrolling social media when I need a minute to myself at work. I’m always doing something. It’s not like I’m afraid to spend time thinking. That’s kind of what this blog post is, and my daily journaling haiku habit, but even that isn’t letting my mind be at rest. It’s an active form of thinking, a directed mode of thought. I rarely leave myself the space for my mind to wander wherever it wants since even the usual “wandering” is directed by whatever activity I’m doing. While driving, though, there’s not much else to do. Watching the road, being aware of drivers, and so on takes some of my attention, but when you’re driving a thousand miles in sixteen hours, almost all of it on one long interstate route, you have a lot of time where there’s no cars or trucks near you where you can’t afford to let your eyes wander but your mind is free to stroll about as it pleases. I rarely come out of a long drive with much in the way of clarity so much as ideas to pick at some other time, but this time I woke up the morning after my drive with a thought nestled in my head that had bubbled to the surface as a result of the time I’d spent and coversations I’d had with my friends over the days preceeding the drive.

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I Cannot Sleep For The Imagined Sound Of Roof Work

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My roof was mostly replaced today. There is a bit, the only stretch of roof actually visible to me, that remains only partly finished. It seems such a small thing to be left incomplete, like an afterthought or something forgotten rather than work deliberately left until later, but I am not privvy to the minds of these roofers. I could only begin to guess why anything happened the way it did today, and it would all be me grasping at figments of my imagination and incidental observations. I did not speak to them. They did not speak to me. I barely even observed their work, instead measuring their progress in the tromp of feet above me, the grinding hum of an air compressor somewhere out of sight, the staccato five-beat pattern of their nail guns, and the occasional appearance of a worker using my balcony as a staging ground for moving materials from the ground to the roof. This happened twice–my day interrupted by the expected knock at the door and an apologetic smile from a man who probably would have felt more comfortable climbing a ladder to use my balcony rather than being told to move through the apartment building, and I still do not understand why it had to happen this way. I didn’t mind the interruption. It wasn’t like I was doing any deep or focused work, distracted as I was by the constant noise of their activity and the rattle of my apartment building as an unknown number of men walked across my roof. It was just odd, this strange set of circumstances that led to me being home all day and my brief, wordless interactions with this poor, uncomfortable roofer. None of my neighbors interracted with the roofers at all. Only me. And even then, all I did was open a door for the roofer and then lock it behind him once he was finished passing sheets of plywood up to his coworkers. It was as distant a remove as could be possible when your roof is being replaced and your balcony is needed as a halfway point for passing materials up.

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Mixed Emotions About Doing Different Activities Instead Of Final Fantasy 14

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Not playing Final Fantasy 14 for a few days has been a weird experience. I wrote Monday’s post about taking a break from FF14 before I actually put it into effect. I stayed up pretty late on Sunday night to wrap up the Dawntrail expansion and solidified my decision to take a break betwen then and writing my blog post the following day during breaks at work. Then I left work early so I could participate in my Monday night Ultimate raid practice, spent a few hours making alternate characters on my now-open server to combat my anxiety, spent a few hours last night working on the final raid in the Alexander Savage raid series my group is doing, and then spent another hour and a half after that hanging out online and unlocking an activity that I was planning to do tonight. I haven’t really played all that much less than normal, at least looking at it on the basis of daily participation. I did, however, stop playing FF14 every night with time enough to still do other things before bed, which I didn’t used to do. And tonight I’m not actually doing the activity I unlocked because I was at work until my personal cut-off time (8:30pm, a time I will not work past except in the case of emergencies) and had to do my grocery shopping after that because my car is going to be trapped in my apartment’s underground garage for a few days while the parking lot is filled up by the roofing company that will be spending the next few days replacing the rooves of my apartment building and the one next door that shares a parking lot. So I got home super late, ate dinner late, showered late, and was too miserable and tired to want to hop online for thirty minutes or whatever. So I’m writing this instead.

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All Of This To Say…

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Growing up, in the simplified lessons of conservative Catholicism and childhood emotional grow, I was taught that love and hate are opposites. That they’re so opposed they cannot exist together such that, should you feel love for something, you are incapable of actually hating it, or if you burn with hatred for something, you are incapable of loving it. This was taught to me again and again as I dealt with my abusive elder brother and neglectful parents, alongside the lesson that of course I loved my family since anything less would be some kind of sin or moral failing on my part (these are equivalent in the version of Catholicism I was taught as a child), and since I had little access to people outside of my family thanks to being homeschooled, I didn’t learn any different until high school when I finally got out from under my parents’ teaching and learned from people who had different ideas and understandings of the world around us. There, as I began to develop emotionally and learn things about myself and others, I learned that the opposite of love wasn’t hate but a lack of care or concern. In fact, love and hate were two sides of the same coin, emotions so intense that they couldn’t help but overlap in ways big and small that could not only lead to some incredible opportunities for change and grace (since this was still a Catholic high school and everything was taught as close to a religious framing as possible) but also to some of the most toxic and horrible relationships that humanity had to offer (I was, after all, finally learning enough to know that my life at home was not normal or good). This mixture of emotions contributes to codependent relationships, manipulation, many different forms of abuse, and an inability to escape these things because, culturally, US society places a huge degree of importance on the power of love to overcome and redeem those who ahve hurt us.

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I’m Tired But Not Sad So I’ll Just Ramble About Why That Is

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As I slowly move back towards the kind of heavy labor I was doing at the beginning of this year (though at a slower pace, thankfully), it is nice to know that I am not only more physically capable than I was back then, but that a good night’s rest is more effective than it used to be. From just over a year ago until sometime in the spring, it would take me multiple days of rest to recover from a single day’s exertion and now a single night is enough to recover from feeling physically exhausted. Assuming I get enough sleep, anyway. But also, a year ago, I wasn’t able to sleep for more than a few hours, three or four at most, without waking up with excruciating back pain! I was so tired and pained all the time that it was everything I could do just to keep getting through my days. I descended into a place of fog, exhaustion, misery, and constant trudging persistence while I slowly recovered from years with a worn-out bed, the physical toll of the medication I was taking, and the added weight of not sleeping enough for three months in a row. In fact, I only ever started to recover when I stopped taking that medication and my body was able to start properly repairing itself instead of… well, whatever was going on there. I tell you, there’s nothing like going from needing three to seven days for your muscles to recover from feeling tired to being able to get back up and do more with them after sitting down for a little bit, much less feeling almost all the way better by the next morning. I mean, today was a doozy and I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow, but only enough that it’ll make me do my morning stretches for sure and not leave me in a miserable amount of pain like even half this much effort would have done a year ago.

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I’m Gonna Make It Through This Month If It Kills Me

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In the last five days, multiple news anchors have called for the death of homeless people and they all still have their jobs. Other people have stated, with no spin or hyperbole, the beliefs of a man who was killed in the middle of making excuses for mass shootings being an acceptable loss for the right to have guns and gotten themselves fired, doxed, or stuck on administrative leave as a result. People have come out of the woodwork to praise a man who spoke only hate merely because he was killed. An entire factory of temporary workers were abducted by ICE and had their human rights violated while imprisoned, which isn’t even the worst thing that happened that week. The president of the United States of America has called on the various executive powers of the government to start investigating anyone who has spoken ill of him publicly (culminating in Jimmy Kimmel getting taken off the air for incredibly innocuous comments, but that seems to have broken through to the general public in a way nothing else has so far, which feels both horrendous and mildly relieving–horrendous because so much worse has happened already and mildly relieving because finally, something broke through to the public). A man going about his day-to-day life was killed by ICE agents who lied about what happened and will likely face no real consequences because there’s no way to know for sure who did what because they’re going around with their faces hidden and all identifying information removed from what can’t even be called their uniforms. All of this, and so much more I can’t bear to write about (or don’t dare to write about) has happened in the first half of the month (September, 2025).

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The Griefs Of Immortality And Moving On

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At the end of last week, I wrote about the anime Frieren and walked right up to discussing why stories about immortals learning to deal with losing the people who were an important part of their life is of particular interest to me. I actually wrote a couple paragraphs about that, but it didn’t really fit in with talking about the anime in general or the specific parts of it that I found the most engaging while watching it, so I cut them out and morphed them into this blog post. After all, that idea, the core of why those kinds of stories are interesting to me, is what prompted me to write about Frieren and I want to explore the space a bit more than I could while discussing the show itself.

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Clearing A Low Bar With My Birthday Celebration

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For most of my life, I haven’t enjoyed my birthday. Once the shine of new toys and celebrations wore off during my childhood (following yet another ruined birthday party) I was mostly only interested in my birthday as the vehicle my parents used to give their children toys. Most of the time, unless we got a gift of money from a relative (this only applied to cash since all checks were deposited in our college saving account), got a reward for good grade, or saved up our allowances, our parents wouldn’t buy us anything unnecessary. They’d take us to the library or to the video rental store (and eventually the video game rental store) once a week each, but we rarely got anything permanently ours outside of our birthdays, Christmas, and the one souvenir we were allowed during family trips that happened to go somewhere that had a gift shop. Which meant that by the time I was eight or nine, birthdays had become just a means of getting new toys and books that I could keep (being able to keep something as my own was a big deal as a kid with three siblings and a “we will buy ‘big’ things for the family but not a specific child” family rule). They stayed that for a few years and, after the month of August was basically ruined for me by a few years of consecutive traumas during the month, stopped being special. I mean, I was so detached from my birthday that I got through all but the last half hour of my eighteenth birthday before I remembered that it was, in fact, my birthday since I was so busy at college with my new friends and my family wasn’t the sort to reach out via phone calls or texts at the time.

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