I was going to write today about our day at the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya, but I looked at my 100+ photos from that outing, and I just don’t feel up to sifting through them. I always think the photo-heavy posts will be quicker because there’s less to write, but sometimes they take me hours of editing and culling and uploading. Keeping up the blog while we travel is quite a bit of work, though worth it (and I won’t end up with the usual ginormous collection of unsorted photos after we get back!).
Can you tell from my posts that our six months of travel are wearing me down? I haven’t wanted to say much about it, but truth be told, I am quite tired… not so much that I can’t enjoy myself, but a lot of the eagerness is gone, edged out by the solid weight of weariness and something that is not quite apathy yet — but give it another few months and it might be. It feels tremendously ungrateful to say so, but there it is.
I actually went so far, last week, as to hunt up and take an online quiz about burnout. I was kind of just idling online, but the results were unexpectedly insightful. First, there was a sentence about having too many responsibilities with no help from others. I hadn’t realized just how much that was bothering me, but once I read it, I recognized truth. Erik makes our trip possible in many ways (not least of which, financially), but the day-to-day planning is all me. This is partly by choice and by nature, but it means I feel entirely responsible for our comfort and edification while we travel, not to mention (since Erik is quite introverted) any email/phone correspondence and many of our face-to-face interactions (e.g., talking to people in restaurants). Any one task is fine by itself, but add them all up, and it’s almost a full-time job. On a related note, the quiz separated burnout into three types of factors — work-related, lifestyle-related, and personality-related — and guess what? I scored highest in personality… which means I’m not burning out because we’re traveling, but because my nature leans toward intensity and perfectionism. In other words, I can take anybody’s dream life — like the one we are currently living — and turn it into something stressful and exhausting!
Not to say I’m on-edge and wiped out all the time, but I’ve definitely been doing a lot of thinking. The way I feel right now is uncomfortably familiar. I remember it from my senior year of college, from much of grad school, from preparing for craft shows, and from certain weeks in Toronto. I take on too much, always, and I always want to do it all — if not perfectly, then at least better than most everyone else. You can tell by the way I travel: not content to just follow the guidebook, I do my best to pick up some of the language, learn my way around, hit up the major sights and get off the beaten track, and do this while writing, blogging, sketching, keeping in touch with family and friends, and getting used to a new apartment. I am absolutely enriched by the way I approach our travels, and I wouldn’t want to do it any other way. But I think it is too much, too fast; immersing myself in Scotland and then Iceland and then Istanbul and soon Paris, all within a space of less than half a year. And I get so caught up in trying to do everything “right,” even though I know there is no right. I pick a mediocre restaurant one night and suddenly find myself feeling like I’ve failed as a traveler. What the heck is that?! It makes no sense, but the feeling is there, visceral and sinking.
It’s funny, because when we first started traveling, I said it made me more mellow — and yet here the inner taskmaster is again, having apparently tracked me from California: “Bwaha! Found you!” The single biggest lesson of our travels is truly “wherever you go, there you are.” No matter where I am or what I’m doing, sooner or later I end up in the same old patterns… and one of my patterns is throwing my energy so furiously into all my pursuits that I burn myself out within months. I need a break, obviously. Not a vacation (ha! where would we go?), but a time to pause and remind myself that I shape my own life and can give myself permission to live at a slower pace — that the purpose of our travels is to be receptive, curious; not to hurl myself at the world, checklist in hand, striving for the perfect 10 of travel. It amazes me how often I need these reminders.
So… we leave for Paris the day after tomorrow, and after a month there, we go home for Christmas. Until then, I will try to listen to my tiredness, because I know it’s important. Curiously enough, though I found plenty of burnout diagnostics online, I didn’t find very much useful advice on how to cope with it. I suppose the answer is just what I’ve always found, that it helps to take things a day at a time, not worry about what I can’t change, let go of the need to do everything. This fabulous life has been entrusted to me… not to control, or plan, or perfect, but just to live. I don’t know why it’s so weirdly hard to do that, but I’m learning.
Well, darling girl, I am not surprised that you are travel weary. But you have one month left to redeem yourself:) Take long, slow walks, eat good food, sketch your heart out (if you feel like it), and take lots of naps. This can be your vacation, not your “last and only chance to experience Paris!” EnEnjoy and have fn.
Thank you for the loving support, Sherry! You’re quite right — the “gotta do everything” panic I feel sometimes definitely comes from thinking, “this might be my last and only chance to be here.” Which of course it’s not!
Hey Lisa,
I think that, no matter what standards one holds theirself to, after all that time and change, anybody would be pretty exhausted. I know you’re not explicitly asking for suggestions, and it sounds like you’re already doing a lot of work on being aware of what’s making you feel good and bad, so if this feels at all imposing, please feel free disregard all of the following completely (or partially, whatever suits you): I’ve struggled a lot with the same things you describe, of burning myself out constantly because of my need for perfection and often competitive nature. Offhandedly, I can think of 3 (maybe 4) things that have helped me most. 1) Creating things and doing journaling that I have decided I will absolutely not show to anyone else (sometimes I change my mind after I’ve done it, but the important part is having permission to create in a way that is absent of external scrutiny). 2) Noticing which type of conversations with others, and which people, most bring up those feelings of needing to prove my excellence, and giving myself permission to kindly and gently take some space from those things/people. 3) Creating end-of-day lists in my journal that consist entirely of things I initially felt bad about but actually, upon reflection, did well with. (For example, maybe I spent much too long wandering a store feeling weird and mopey and creeping body insecurity, but then ultimately realized I felt yucky and went home without even buying anything. In that case, at the end of the day, I write down, “I did a good job of working at being aware of how I felt about myself, and when I realized a choice I’d made was making me feel bad, I made a different, more self-affirming choice and found a way to fill my time that felt better. Success!” 4) (sort of) Giving myself permission to ask for help, completely disregard people’s help, or completely integrate that person’s help into my life without any amount of shame or self-blame, regardless of what choice I make around it.
Oh thank you, dear Sarah. I know you know what I’m feeling, and I appreciate your suggestions a lot. I was thinking about what you wrote on my last day in Istanbul as I was walking around, and taking strength from your reminders. 🙂 ❤
I can understand how you mus be feeling. A certain feeling of sensory overload as well as the logistical part too. When I get this sometimes when we travel I find a nice laid back coffee shop, with my notebook, and just sit and watch for hours with no intent to do anything other than to drink coffee ( or wine) , eat cookies ( or nuts) and sit there watching people and writing rough thoughts until I feel the battery charge. It can take a while, but I feel the stress drain from my body. Works for me – and I’m ready to go. Hope you can find time to chill and re-charge.
Thank you, Alan. It’s definitely sensory and logistical overload, and as Sarah said above, just the buildup of time and change. I like your coffee shop idea. Curiously enough, though I spent a lot of time writing and sketching in cafés elsewhere, I did not do that a single time while in Istanbul. I wonder if that’s related to my extreme tiredness there!
Hugs dear one.
Ah, thank you thank you. *BIG HUGS* To you too. I hope you’re doing well.
[…] of another building, so it’s extremely quiet here. Over the past few days I have felt my burned-out weariness losing its edge, as if I left it behind in […]