Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel so exhausted all the time.
Then it hit me.
Running in place.
That’s what it feels like.
It’s the daily grind of adulting. The bills. The laundry. The financial anxiety. It’s the quiet, relentless work of maintaining a life. Every day is filled with things that have to get done just to keep the floor from giving way.
Running in place.
It’s exhausting, not because of one grand crisis, but because of all the little things that demand our attention every single day.
I’m not giving up. It’s just that the energy I have is entirely consumed by the effort to simply stay in place.
Running in place.
By the end of the day, there is nothing left.
No spark to chase a dream.
No fuel to start a business.
No energy to learn a new skill.
No energy to date or pursue a relationship.
Sometimes there is barely enough energy to sit down and enjoy the evening before it’s time to go to bed and do it all over again.
Running in place.
We step off the treadmill briefly. We binge Star Trek. We get lost in The Three-Body Problem. We read words by Dan Hass to make us laugh. We watch movies. We scroll our phones. We distract ourselves just long enough to forget that so much of our existence is spent simply preventing things from falling apart.
Then the credits roll.
Running in place.
What does actually living look like?
I don’t know if any of us really knows.
We spend so much time preparing to live that we forget we’re already in the middle of it.
We tell ourselves, When things settle down...
When I have more money.
When life isn’t so busy.
When the bills are caught up.
When things get easier.
Running in place.
The finish line has a funny way of moving every time we think we’re getting close. We keep believing life is waiting for us somewhere in the future, when maybe it’s been happening all along.
Maybe that’s why so many of us feel tired in ways that sleep can’t fix.
It’s not just physical exhaustion.
It’s emotional exhaustion.
Mental exhaustion.
The exhaustion of carrying responsibilities that don’t stop just because you’re having a hard day.
If you don’t do the laundry, nobody else will.
If you don’t make the phone call, it won’t get made.
If you don’t pay the bill, it won’t magically disappear.
Running in place.
We imagine actually living looks like following your gut. Taking risks. Moving toward your dreams. Feeling like you’re finally headed somewhere instead of just keeping your head above water.
Anything but running in place.
If you’re a parent, maybe that’s part of the hope. Watching your kids run after their dreams instead of spending their lives running in place. I wonder what that must be like.
I grew up in a family of six. In many ways, I helped raise my younger brother and sister. Maybe that’s why I never felt the urge to have children of my own. It already felt like I had played that part.
Instead, my version of running in place has looked like caregiving for my mother, the same woman who spent years taking care of me.
Running in place.
It meant spending hours just sitting with her because my presence was enough.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes the television talked for us.
Sometimes we just sat there together.
At the time, it didn’t feel like we were accomplishing anything.
Now I wonder if simply being there was the accomplishment.
Running in place.
It meant missing nights online with friends because there were more important things to do.
It meant watching her last days unfold one day at a time.
It meant juggling her appointments with my own.
It meant scraping together the change in my pocket to surprise her with a hot fudge sundae from McDonald’s.
Running in place.
I don’t regret a second of it.
I don’t regret the late nights.
I don’t regret the sacrifice.
Those moments were acts of love.
What I regret is the lingering feeling that the rest of my life was put on hold.
The hard part is that love and regret can exist in the same story.
I regret that life can demand so much of us that, after we’ve taken care of everyone and everything else, there is nothing left to build the life we once imagined.
Running in place.
But running in place also teaches you gratitude.
It shows you who sticks around when the path gets narrow.
It means remembering the friends who still check in.
The ones who haven’t forgotten you. Your loyal friends.
Shoutout to Martin and Kim and Steve.
Running in place.
It means chatting with a mysterious reader who somehow always has the best stories of her own. Someone who reminds you that there are good people quietly cheering you on from behind a screen.
Shoutout to TurdlyTheTurtle!
Running in place.
Funny how the people who are far away can sometimes feel closer than the people living down the street.
Running in place has a way of showing you who stays beside you, even if they’re thousands of miles away.
And if you look closely enough...
Maybe you aren’t actually getting nowhere.
Maybe you’re becoming more patient.
Maybe you’re learning compassion.
Maybe you’re learning that love doesn’t always look like progress.
Maybe you’re discovering that simply showing up for someone is one of the greatest accomplishments you’ll ever have.
Maybe the miles you’ve traveled can’t be measured by promotions, money, followers, or accomplishments.
Maybe they’re measured by the kindness you’ve shown.
By the people you’ve shown up for.
By the quiet moments no one else will ever know about.
Running in place.
Maybe that’s progress.
Maybe running in place isn’t about standing still after all.
Maybe it’s about becoming the kind of person you never would have become if life had been easy.
And maybe...
just maybe...
I wasn’t standing still after all.
Member discussion: