My Burnout Made It’s Debut In A Pretty Pink Dress
On January 2, 2020, it was 6pm and I was getting dressed for a friend’s wedding. For 30 minutes I was battling between indecision of what to wear and worrying that I was running late (it started at 7pm and I had an hour to drive) …running late was an understatement. When I finally picked a dress, it wouldn’t zip. The damn dress wouldn’t zip! All the praying and cursing wasn’t helping. In that moment after one last failed attempt, I fell to the floor in a puddle and started crying. Not cute tears crying but ugly crying aka ‘cow bawlin’ as known to us Caribbean people! Eventually by the grace of God I zipped the dress, and made it to the wedding, 30 minutes late.
This was the moment I knew I was on the verge of a complete breakdown and needed to make some changes in my life or risk something worse than crying in a pink puddle over a wardrobe malfunction.
So how did I get to this point? My theory is sheer exhaustion and unhappiness. I was exhausted from work and unhappy in my job and personal life. In that moment, I thought about all the college friends and worried about navigating the “what you been up to?” “How’s the job?” “how come you’re not married?” questions. Now there are clearly a few things that led to this point, but let’s talk about one of the biggies, I was burned out from my job. Burnt to a crisp.
