The Roundtable Of Broken Voices
The last six months have been a reckoning.
Reckoning: the settling of an account.
Reckoning: retribution for one’s actions.
Reckoning: the art of estimation.
I have been pondering an essay about burnout for awhile now. It’s still a little out of reach, the words and ideas still mostly hazy. But while it’s been hard to describe what burnout feels like in my brain and in my body, its effects and results have been unquestionable:
We can’t continue to do the kind of foster care we’ve been doing.
At least, we can’t do it the way we’ve been doing it, taking teenagers for months at a time until they age out, or burn out, or leave. Right now we’re lying fallow, trying to let some nutrients back into our souls and hoping.
Accepting this reality has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do. The months since our last kid’s departure have been decidedly less stressful, but my capacity to handle stresses has been shattered.
People who love me are using words like brittle. Reactive. Fragile.
Grieving.
I’m not myself, these days.
