Spent

Lately, I’ve been carrying around a feeling that’s difficult to describe without sounding dramatic. I don’t feel broken. I don’t feel hopeless. I still get up, still think, still plan, still create. But underneath all of it, there’s something that feels used up. Not all at once, and not from one thing specifically. More like the accumulation of a pace I carried for so long that I never really stopped to ask what it was costing me.

For more than twenty years, I operated in a state that I later started calling Overdrive. At the time, I didn’t think of it that way. It was just how I functioned. Keep moving. Keep solving problems. Keep things stable. Keep going. That pace became so normal that eventually everyone around me learned to expect it. Work expected it. Family expected it. I expected it from myself.

The problem is that Overdrive worked. It carried me through a lot. It helped me build a career, support a family, solve problems, and keep things from falling apart. From the outside, it probably looked dependable. Consistent. Functional. But I think there was a version of me that learned a long time ago that stopping wasn’t an option. That version kept things moving for years. It carried pressure, stayed functional, and kept going no matter what was happening underneath it.

For a long time, I thought being present meant being physically there, working, providing, solving problems, and keeping things stable. I did those things consistently. But I was rarely at ease. Even when nothing was actively wrong, I carried myself like something needed to be managed. I don’t think I realized how much that shaped the emotional atmosphere around me.

Looking back now, I think my family learned to feel that without anyone saying it out loud. I imagine they experienced me as someone dependable, but also distant. Someone who was always carrying pressure from somewhere else. There were probably long stretches where I seemed irritated even when I wasn’t trying to be. Quick frustration. Little patience for disorder. Constant focus on responsibilities, unfinished tasks, what still needed to get done. Functional, yes. Stable, probably. But calm, no.

As a father, I thought my role was to hold structure together. Provide. Stay steady. Keep things moving forward. I showed up to work. I paid bills. I handled responsibilities. I stayed consistent. But there were parts of me that slowly disappeared inside that pace. Not all at once. Gradually. Quietly.

Looking back now, I don’t think my daughters only learned from what I said. They learned from the atmosphere I carried with me. How I handled pressure. How easily frustration could surface. How responsibilities always seemed to matter more than rest. I don’t think I showed them how to simply be. I think I showed them how to operate, and perhaps that failure is not an option, and if it happens, something to be ashamed of. Sometimes I wonder if failure felt heavier for them simply because I was there to witness it.

That realization has been difficult to sit with because sometimes I wonder if, instead of dad feeling like a source of comfort and safety, I became someone they associated more with pressure, disappointment, or shame.

For a long time, I assumed exhaustion was just part of being an adult. I didn’t question it very much because life kept moving, and so did I.

At one point, my doctor treated me for fibromyalgia after other explanations had largely been ruled out. The heart arrythmia that developed over time for no apparent reason, that still lingers to this day. I don’t pretend to fully understand what was happening physically during those years, but I sometimes wonder if eventually something in me that had been ignored for a very long time finally found a way to be felt.

I think slowing down long enough to notice all of this changed something. Lately, I’ve started noticing the difference between living and maintaining. There are moments now where I can sit quietly, write, think, reflect, watch a movie, expand one of my worlds, and not feel like I’m burning through myself to do it. That feeling is still new enough that I notice it immediately. I can feel the difference when something isn’t costing me the same way.

That contrast has made other things harder to ignore. I don’t think Overdrive can be the foundation of the rest of my life. Not because I suddenly dislike responsibility, and not because I want to disappear from the life I built here. I can just feel what it took.

I also don’t think the life I’ve built in America can simply be recreated somewhere else, and I don’t think I want it to be. Life in a small pueblo would be different structurally, socially, and fundamentally. That’s part of the point. I’m not trying to transplant my current life into another location. I think I’m searching for a way of living that feels more natural to me, something that doesn’t require me to consume myself just to maintain it.

That doesn’t mean I’m in a panic to leave. In many ways, I understand that staying here for now is what allows future plans to exist at all. This phase of my life still has purpose. I’ll continue working, building, planning, and taking advantage of the time I have while I’m here. But something has shifted in the way I see it. For most of my adult life, this pace felt indefinite. Now it feels finite.

I think that realization changes a person. Not because they stop caring, but because they finally recognize that endurance has limits. There are times now where I feel older internally than I actually am. Not physically old. Just worn in a way that’s hard to explain. Like I can feel the mileage from the last twenty years all at once.

For years, the people around me learned that I could absorb pressure and continue functioning anyway. If something needed to get done, I would eventually figure it out. That became part of my role in the family, at work, and even inside my own identity. The expectation was rarely spoken out loud because it didn’t need to be. I had already taught everyone the pace.

Now I find myself drawing a line that probably doesn’t make sense to everyone yet. I can feel what it took to live that way, and I’m not going back to it. Not because I don’t want to. Because I can feel the cost.

And lastly, I’m trying to figure out how to build a different future without abandoning the life I already built here. Family. Work. Responsibility. All of it still matters to me. That’s part of what makes this so difficult. I can feel myself reaching toward a different way of living while still carrying the weight of the current one. I just hope there’s still enough time left to build it carefully, without losing what matters most along the way.