I M Emotionally Exhausted Quotes

I'm tired," she uttered complainingly. "I know you are." "You don't know anything about it. Why should you know? I never was so exhausted in my life. But it isn't unpleasant. A thousand emotions have swept through me to-night. I don't comprehend half on them. Don't mind what I'm saying; I am just thinking aloud.

It's not that I have no shame. Rather, I'm exhausted with shame, slippery all over with its sticky albumen taint. It is not an emotion that leads anywhere.

Not that I'm bipolar, but that I'm two people, and not just two people, but two people at odds with each other. The mom and the kid, the homebody and the explorer, the strong and the weak, the logical and the emotional, the funny and the sad, the angry and the calm, the open and the closed, the loved and the hated, the hot and the cold, the alive and the dead, the beautiful and the ugly. It's exhausting. I. Am. Exhausting.

Serpentining" means trying to control a situation, backing out of it, pretending it's not happening, or maybe even pretending that you don't care. We use it to dodge conflict, discomfort, possible confrontation, the potential for shame or hurt, and/or criticism (self- or other-inflicted). Serpentining can lead to hiding out, pretending, avoidance, procrastination, rationalizing, blaming, and lying. I have a tendency to want to serpentine when I feel vulnerable. If I have to make a difficult call, I'll try to script both sides of it. I'll convince myself that I should wait, I'll draft an e-mail while telling myself that it's better in writing, and I'll think of a million other things to do. I'll emotionally run back and forth until I'm exhausted.

There are days when I give up on myself, when I’m exhausted from dragging along the demotivated, indecisive, hopeless, tired, and restless version of myself. I wish there was a way to leave him entirely behind, or at least set him aside for a little while. Some days I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

All my life people have told me how strong I am, like it’s the best thing I’ve got to offer. I know they mean it in all the ways—physically, emotionally, mentally—and I am. But I’m also tired, worn out from hurting and being expected to come out on top of everything—even a car crash. I’m exhausted in all the ways I’m supposed to be strong...

Freud was fascinated with depression and focused on the issue that we began with—why is it that most of us can have occasional terrible experiences, feel depressed, and then recover, while a few of us collapse into major depression (melancholia)? In his classic essay “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), Freud began with what the two have in common. In both cases, he felt, there is the loss of a love object. (In Freudian terms, such an “object” is usually a person, but can also be a goal or an ideal.) In Freud’s formulation, in every loving relationship there is ambivalence, mixed feelings—elements of hatred as well as love. In the case of a small, reactive depression—mourning—you are able to deal with those mixed feelings in a healthy manner: you lose, you grieve, and then you recover. In the case of a major melancholic depression, you have become obsessed with the ambivalence—the simultaneity, the irreconcilable nature of the intense love alongside the intense hatred. Melancholia—a major depression—Freud theorized, is the internal conflict generated by this ambivalence. This can begin to explain the intensity of grief experienced in a major depression. If you are obsessed with the intensely mixed feelings, you grieve doubly after a loss—for your loss of the loved individual and for the loss of any chance now to ever resolve the difficulties. “If only I had said the things I needed to, if only we could have worked things out”—for all of time, you have lost the chance to purge yourself of the ambivalence. For the rest of your life, you will be reaching for the door to let you into a place of pure, unsullied love, and you can never reach that door. It also explains the intensity of the guilt often experienced in major depression. If you truly harbored intense anger toward the person along with love, in the aftermath of your loss there must be some facet of you that is celebrating, alongside the grieving. “He’s gone; that’s terrible but…thank god, I can finally live, I can finally grow up, no more of this or that.” Inevitably, a metaphorical instant later, there must come a paralyzing belief that you have become a horrible monster to feel any sense of relief or pleasure at a time like this. Incapacitating guilt. This theory also explains the tendency of major depressives in such circumstances to, oddly, begin to take on some of the traits of the lost loved/hated one—and not just any traits, but invariably the ones that the survivor found most irritating. Psychodynamically, this is wonderfully logical. By taking on a trait, you are being loyal to your lost, beloved opponent. By picking an irritating trait, you are still trying to convince the world you were right to be irritated—you see how you hate it when I do it; can you imagine what it was like to have to put up with that for years? And by picking a trait that, most of all, you find irritating, you are not only still trying to score points in your argument with the departed, but you are punishing yourself for arguing as well. Out of the Freudian school of thought has come one of the more apt descriptions of depression—“aggression turned inward.” Suddenly the loss of pleasure, the psychomotor retardation, the impulse to suicide all make sense. As do the elevated glucocorticoid levels. This does not describe someone too lethargic to function; it is more like the actual state of a patient in depression, exhausted from the most draining emotional conflict of his or her life—one going on entirely within. If that doesn’t count as psychologically stressful, I don’t know what does.

Loren yawned. She was suddenly so exhausted that she had no room in her body for more emotions. “Don’t make me carry you,” Darien threatened mildly. She waved him away. “Alright, I’m going. Big, bad Devil.

I’ve got Woody. He relies on me. Woody is all I want for now, all I need. I couldn’t possibly take him to Costa Rica. A trip to the barbershop emotionally exhausts him, and he needs days to recover from going to the dentist. I’m afraid you underestimate how a special-needs child changes your life.

When I’m given a role, the first thing I do is read the play over and over again. I scour the script and write down everything the character says about himself and everything that everyone else says about him. I immerse myself in my character and imagine what it might be like to be that person. When I played Cassio in Othello I imagined what it would be like to be a lieutenant in the Venetian navy in 1604. I sat down with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor and together we decided that Othello, Iago and Cassio had soldiery in their bones. I took from the script that Cassio was talented and ambitious, with no emotional or physical guard - and that’s how I played the part. For me, acting is about recreating the circumstances that would make me feel how my character is feeling. In the dressing room, I practise recreating those circumstances in my head and I try to not get in the way of myself. For example, in act two of Othello, when Cassio is manipulated to fight Roderigo and loses his rank, some nights I would burst into tears; other nights I wouldn’t but I would still feel the same emotion, night after night. Just as in life, the way we respond to catastrophe or death will be different every time because the process is unconscious. By comparison, in Chekhov’s Ivanov I played the young doctor, Lvov. Lvov was described as “a prig and a bigot … uprightness in boots … tiresome … completely sincere”. His emotions were locked away. I worked around the key phrase: “Forgive me, I’m going to tell you plainly.” I practised speaking gravely and sincerely without emotion and I actually noticed how that carried over into my personal life: when I played the open-hearted Cassio, I felt really free; when I played the pent-up Lvov, I felt a real need to release myself from the shackles of that character. It’s exhilarating to act out the emotions of a character - it’s a bit like being a child again. You flex the same muscles that you did when you pretended to be a cowboy or a policeman: acting is a grown-up version of that with more subtlety and detail. You’re responding with real emotions to imaginary situations. When I’m in a production I never have a day when I haven’t laughed, cried or screamed. There are times when I wake up stiff from emotional exhaustion. Film is a much more intimate and thoughtful medium than theatre because of the proximity of the camera. The camera can read your thoughts. On stage, if you have a moment of vulnerability you can hide it from the other actors; on film, the camera will see you feel that emotion and try to suppress it. Similarly, if you’re pretending to feel something that isn’t there, it won’t be believable.

Michael grew silent, his gaze softening as he looked from me to Will, and a dim light of hope flickered in my heart. “You would mourn for him.” “Yes, I said. “I would mourn him forever with a broken heart. This human soul has given me so many blessings and curses. I’m the only one of our kind who has ever felt the most perfect happiness and the truest sorrow - because of this soul. My love for my Guardian is one of those blessings. It’s not a curse.” “You can,” I promised. “Please trust me. I need all the help I can get, and that includes yours. If you kill my Guardian, then I will never forgive you. I can’t be at war with you too. Please, please, Michael, my brother. Don’t kill him. … A tear caught on the edge of my lips. “Do you love me as your sister?” His mouth opened to reply, but nothing came out. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re worried about me, because you love me. Don’t be afraid of feeling anything. our Father made us this way. He wouldn’t make a mistake.” “I…,” Michael said, and emotion spilled over his face. His brow furrowed with exhaustion and he seemed overwhelmed by what he felt. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “You are my sister, Gabriel.” “Then don’t do this.” I begged him. He was quiet again for several agonising moments, returning to his emotionless state. “Keep him. I have faith in you, Sister. Will and I breathed sighs of relief, but it was a few seconds before Michael withdrew his sword. His expression remained unchanging as he lifted Will’s death warrant.

She was only twenty-three, not even a quarter of a century old.She had spent the last five years living exclusively in the human world. Now her wild nature was calling to her. Gregori was touching something untamed in her, something to which she had forbidden herself access. Something wild and unhibited and incredibly sensuous. Savannah looked up at his dark, handsome face. It was so male. So carnal. So powerful. Gregori. The Dark One. Just looking at him made her go weak with need. One glance from his slashing silver eyes could bring a rush of liquid heat, fire racing through her.She became soft and pliant. She became his. Gregori's palm cupped her face. "Whatever you are thinking is making you fear me,Savannah," he said softly. "Stop it." "You're making me into something I'm not," she whispered. "You are Carpathian, my lifemate. You are Savannah Dubrinsky. I cannot take any of those things from you. I do not want a puppet, or a different woman. I want you as you are." His voice was soft and compelling. He lifted her in his arms,carried her to his bed and tucked the covers around her. The storm lashed at the windows and whistled against the walls. Gregori wove the safeguards in preparation for their sleep. Savannah as exhausted, her eyes already trying to close. Then he slipped into the bed and gathered her into his arms. "I would never change anything about you,ma patite, not even your nasty little temper." She settled against his body as if she was made for it.He felt the brush of her lips against his chest and the last sigh of air as it escaped from her lungs. Gregori lay awake for a long time, watching as the dawn crept forward, pushing away the night. One wave of his hand closed and locked the heavy shutters over the windows. Still he lay awake, holding Savannah close. Because he had always known he was dangerous, he had feared for mortals and immortals alike at his hand. But somehow,perhaps naively, he had thought that once he was bound to his lifemate, he would become tamer, more domesticated. His fingers bunched in her hair. But Savannah made him wild. She made him far more dangerous than he had ever been. Before Savannah, he had had no emotions. He had killed when it necessary because it was necessary. He had feared nothing because he loved nothing and had nothing to lose. Now he had everything to lose.And so he was more dangerous.For no one, nothing, would ever threaten Savannah and live.

Until we kissed the other night, it had been over a year and a half since a man had touched me. I’ve had a lot of time to fantasize about some boundaries I want to test. I’m not asking you to tie me up and hit me or anything….” I take a breath. How do I explain this? “I have to be in control all the time—of my reactions, of my emotions. It’s exhausting pretending to not be as scared as I feel. So, I just want to give up control of this. If you want me, then take over. Use me, however you want.

Then the events leading up to her collapse came back to her in a flash. Her hands flew automatically to her belly and she was only partially reassured to feel the tight ball there. Was her baby okay? Was she herself okay? She blinked harder to bring the room more into focus. There was light shining through a crack in the bathroom door. A glance at the blinds told her that it was dark outside. Then her gaze fell on the chair beside her bed and she found Ryan staring at her, his gaze intense. She flinched away from the raw emotion shining in his blue eyes. “Hey,” he said quietly. “How are you feeling?” “Numb,” she answered before she could think better of it. “Kind of blank. My head doesn’t hurt anymore. Are my feet still swollen?” He carefully picked up the sheet and pushed it over her feet. “Maybe a little. Not as bad as they were. They’ve been giving you meds and they’re monitoring the baby.” “How is she?” Kelly asked, a knot of fear in her throat. “For now, she’s doing fine. Your blood pressure stabilized, but they might have to do a C-section if it goes back up or if the baby starts showing signs of distress.” Kelly closed her eyes and then suddenly Ryan was close to her, holding her, his lips pressed against her temple. “Don’t worry, love,” he murmured. “You’re supposed to stay calm. You’re getting the best possible care. I’ve made sure of it. They’re monitoring you round-the-clock. And the doctor said the baby has an excellent prognosis at thirty-four weeks’ gestation.” She sagged against the pillow and closed her eyes. Relief pulsed through her but she was so tired she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything more than lie there thanking God that her baby was okay. “I’m going to take care of you, Kell,” Ryan said softly against her temple. “You and our baby. Nothing will ever hurt you again. I swear it.” Tears burned her eyelids. She was emotionally and physically exhausted and didn’t have the strength to argue. Something inside her was broken and she had no idea how to fix it. She felt so…disconnected.

Grateful! Good God! Am I never to get away from the bleat of that filmy adjective? I don’t want gratitude. I don’t want kindness. I don’t want sentimentality. I don’t even want love—I could make you give me that—of a sort. I want common honesty.’ ‘Do you? But that’s what I’ve always wanted—I don’t think it’s to be got.’ ‘Listen, Harriet. I do understand. I know you don’t want either to give or to take. You’ve tried being the giver, and you’ve found that the giver is always fooled. And you won’t be the taker, because that’s very difficult, and because you know that the taker always ends by hating the giver. You don’t want ever again to have to depend for happiness on another person.’ ‘That’s true. That’s the truest thing you ever said.’ ‘All right. I can respect that. Only you’ve got to play the game. Don’t force an emotional situation and then blame me for it.’ ‘But I don’t want any situation. I want to be left in peace.’ ‘Oh! but you are not a peaceful person. You’ll always make trouble. Why not fight it out on equal terms and enjoy it? Like Alan Breck, I’m a bonny fighter.’ ‘And you think you’re sure to win.’ ‘Not with my hands tied.’ ‘Oh!—well, all right. But it all sounds so dreary and exhausting,’ said Harriet, and burst idiotically into tears. ‘Good Heavens!’ said Wimsey, aghast. ‘Harriet! darling! angel! beast! vixen! don’t say that.’ He flung himself on his knees in a frenzy of remorse and agitation. ‘Call me anything you like, but not dreary! Not one of those things you find in clubs! Have this one, darling, it’s much larger and quite clean. Say you didn’t mean it! Great Scott! Have I been boring you interminably for eighteen months on end? A thing any right-minded woman would shudder at I know you once said that if anybody ever married me it would be for the sake of hearing me piffle on, but I expect that kind of thing palls after a bit. I’m babbling—I know I’m babbling. What on earth am I to do about it?’ ‘Ass! Oh, it’s not fair. You always make me laugh. I can’t fight—I’m so tired. You don’t seem to know what being tired is. Stop. Let go. I won’t be bullied. Thank God! there’s the telephone.

Confronted here with the impossibility of self-redemption, I now understand Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “Do not be surprised when I say: ‘You must be born from above.’ ” Indeed, something has to happen that I myself cannot cause to happen. I cannot be reborn from below; that is, with my own strength, with my own mind, with my own psychological insights. There is no doubt in my mind about this because I have tried so hard in the past to heal myself from my complaints and failed … and failed … and failed, until I came to the edge of complete emotional collapse and even physical exhaustion. I can only be healed from above, from where God reaches down. What is impossible for me is possible for God. “With God, everything is possible.

It isn't that I like my job more than my kids overall --if I had to pick, the kids would win every time. But the "marginal value" of time with my kids declines fast. In part, this is because kids are exhausting. The first hour with them is amazing, the second less good, and by hour four I'm ready for a glass of wine or, even better, some time with my research. My job doesn't have this feature. Yes, the eighth hour is less fun than the seventh, but the highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. The physical and emotional challenges of work pale in comparison to the physical and emotional challenges of being an on-scene parent. The eighth hour at my job is better than the fifth hour with the kids on a typical day. And that is why I have a job. Because I like it.

I’ll say it: I am lucky enough to not have to work, in the sense that Jesse and I could change how we organize our life to live on one income. I work because I like to. I love my kids! They are amazing. But I wouldn’t be happy staying home with them. I’ve figured out that my happiness-maximizing allocation is something like eight hours of work and three hours of kids a day. It isn’t that I like my job more than my kids overall—if I had to pick, the kids would win every time. But the “marginal value” of time with my kids declines fast. In part, this is because kids are exhausting. The first hour with them is amazing, the second less good, and by hour four I’m ready for a glass of wine or, even better, some time with my research. My job doesn’t have this feature. Yes, the eighth hour is less fun than the seventh, but the highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. The physical and emotional challenges of work pale in comparison to the physical and emotional challenges of being an on-scene parent. The eighth hour at my job is better than the fifth hour with the kids on a typical day. And that is why I have a job. Because I like it. It should be okay to say this. Just like it should be okay to say that you stay home with your kids because that is what you want to do. I’m well aware that many people don’t want to be an economist for eight hours a day. We shouldn’t have to say we’re staying home for children’s optimal development, or at least, that shouldn’t be the only factor in the decision. “This is the lifestyle I prefer” or “This is what works for my family” are both okay reasons to make choices! So before you even get into reading what the evidence says is “best” for your child or thinking about the family budget, you—and your partner, or any other caregiving adults in the house—should think about what you would really like to do.

Our overview of lagging skills is now complete. Of course, that was just a sampling. Here’s a more complete, though hardly exhaustive, list, including those we just reviewed: > Difficulty handling transitions, shifting from one mind-set or task to another > Difficulty doing things in a logical sequence or prescribed order > Difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks > Poor sense of time > Difficulty maintaining focus > Difficulty considering the likely outcomes or consequences of actions (impulsive) > Difficulty considering a range of solutions to a problem > Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words > Difficulty understanding what is being said > Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally > Chronic irritability and/or anxiety significantly impede capacity for problem-solving or heighten frustration > Difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking > Difficulty deviating from rules, routine > Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, novelty > Difficulty shifting from original idea, plan, or solution > Difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan of action > Inflexible, inaccurate interpretations/cognitive distortions or biases (e.g., “Everyone’s out to get me,” “Nobody likes me,” “You always blame me,” “It’s not fair,” “I’m stupid”) > Difficulty attending to or accurately interpreting social cues/poor perception of social nuances > Difficulty starting conversations, entering groups, connecting with people/lacking basic social skills > Difficulty seeking attention in appropriate ways > Difficulty appreciating how his/her behavior is affecting other people > Difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person’s perspective or point of view > Difficulty appreciating how s/he is coming across or being perceived by others > Sensory/motor difficulties

He pulled her to the bed, undoing his trousers and hitching up her skirt as he did. Dragging down the top of her dress, he feasted on her breasts again, entering her with her thousand-pound dress tangled all round her waist. He thrust into her frantically and she came fast and furiously. They lay together breathing heavily and then she felt him harden again. Peeling her dress from her, he then lifted her from the bed, bending her over the chair by the dressing table. He came into her from behind, rutting like a dog, where she could see herself in the mirror, legs trembling, her breasts squeezed tight in his hands, being fucked by this handsome stranger. Lifting her again, he sat her on the dressing table, pressing her thighs around him as he pushed into her. She laid back, grasping at the table, scattering her jewelry to the floor, knocking over the table lamps, and came again. "Better now?" he said, with a smile. "Yes," she breathed. "Yes." He took her hand and led her to the bed. "Want to open that champagne?" "No." She curled up on the bed, This was what she'd wanted. Anonymous fucking with no chitchat, no foreplay, no commitment. It would be better now if he just left. "I'm tired." The truth was, she was exhausted. Physically and emotionally spent. He lay down beside her, still stroking her butt. "You're one hell of a sexy woman," he said.

Then I remembered my grandmother and realized, my God, the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. The right interface. If you put the right face on it. Want some coffee?" Then he had an alarming thought: What had he been like back in college? How much of an asshole had he been? Had he left Juanita with a bad impression? Another young man would have worried about it in silence, but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard, and so he asked her out for dinner and, after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas), just popped the question: Do you think I'm an asshole? She laughed. He smiled, believing that he had come up with a good, endearing, flirtatious bit of patter. He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was, in effect, the cornerstone of their relationship. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes, but nine times out of ten she insisted the answer was no. It made for some great arguments and some great sex, some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations, but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him, and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. And she, maybe, was beginning to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she didn't.

Having been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, it should just be an old routine to survive. But I haven’t anticipated the emotional ordeal that awaits me. At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them. Combine that with the fact that by losing me they’ll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable. The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I’m the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying. It’s interesting, though, when I think of what Peeta said about the attendant on the train being unhappy about the victors having to fight again. About people in the Capitol not liking it. I still think all of that will be forgotten once the gong sounds, but it’s something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don’t have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who’ve been celebrities for ages, to forget we’re human beings. It’s more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts. By the time Cinna shows up, I am irritable and exhausted from comforting the prep team, especially because their constant tears are reminding me of the ones undoubtedly being shed at home. Standing there in my thin robe with my stinging skin and heart, I know I can’t bear even one more look of regret. So the moment he walks in the door I snap, “I swear if you cry, I’ll kill you here and now.” Cinna just smiles. “Had a damp morning?” “You could wring me out,” I reply.

Take the famous slogan on the atheist bus in London … “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” … The word that offends against realism here is “enjoy.” I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment. Enjoyment is lovely. Enjoyment is great. The more enjoyment the better. But enjoyment is one emotion … Only sometimes, when you’re being lucky, will you stand in a relationship to what’s happening to you where you’ll gaze at it with warm, approving satisfaction. The rest of the time, you’ll be busy feeling hope, boredom, curiosity, anxiety, irritation, fear, joy, bewilderment, hate, tenderness, despair, relief, exhaustion … This really is a bizarre category error. But not necessarily an innocent one … The implication of the bus slogan is that enjoyment would be your natural state if you weren’t being “worried” by us believer … Take away the malignant threat of God-talk, and you would revert to continuous pleasure, under cloudless skies. What’s so wrong with this, apart from it being total bollocks? … Suppose, as the atheist bus goes by, that you are the fifty-something woman with the Tesco bags, trudging home to find out whether your dementing lover has smeared the walls of the flat with her own shit again. Yesterday when she did it, you hit her, and she mewled till her face was a mess of tears and mucus which you also had to clean up. The only thing that would ease the weight on your heart would be to tell the funniest, sharpest-tongued person you know about it: but that person no longer inhabits the creature who will meet you when you unlock the door. Respite care would help, but nothing will restore your sweetheart, your true love, your darling, your joy. Or suppose you’re that boy in the wheelchair, the one with the spasming corkscrew limbs and the funny-looking head. You’ve never been able to talk, but one of your hands has been enough under your control to tap out messages. Now the electrical storm in your nervous system is spreading there too, and your fingers tap more errors than readable words. Soon your narrow channel to the world will close altogether, and you’ll be left all alone in the hulk of your body. Research into the genetics of your disease may abolish it altogether in later generations, but it won’t rescue you. Or suppose you’re that skanky-looking woman in the doorway, the one with the rat’s nest of dreadlocks. Two days ago you skedaddled from rehab. The first couple of hits were great: your tolerance had gone right down, over two weeks of abstinence and square meals, and the rush of bliss was the way it used to be when you began. But now you’re back in the grind, and the news is trickling through you that you’ve fucked up big time. Always before you’ve had this story you tell yourself about getting clean, but now you see it isn’t true, now you know you haven’t the strength. Social services will be keeping your little boy. And in about half an hour you’ll be giving someone a blowjob for a fiver behind the bus station. Better drugs policy might help, but it won’t ease the need, and the shame over the need, and the need to wipe away the shame. So when the atheist bus comes by, and tells you that there’s probably no God so you should stop worrying and enjoy your life, the slogan is not just bitterly inappropriate in mood. What it means, if it’s true, is that anyone who isn’t enjoying themselves is entirely on their own. The three of you are, for instance; you’re all three locked in your unshareable situations, banged up for good in cells no other human being can enter. What the atheist bus says is: there’s no help coming … But let’s be clear about the emotional logic of the bus’s message. It amounts to a denial of hope or consolation, on any but the most chirpy, squeaky, bubble-gummy reading of the human situation. St Augustine called this kind of thing “cruel optimism” fifteen hundred years ago, and it’s still cruel.

As the year went on, I felt I was handling my grief and depression better, but the pressures kept piling up. You don’t really ever feel “comfortable” being a widow. You endure, maybe get through it, but you don’t ever truly own it. And still, a part of me didn’t want to get beyond it. My pain was proof of my love. One night I went over to a friend’s house and just started bawling. I had been going through photos of Chris when he was in his twenties and thirties. I’m going to be an old woman somewhere, and he’s going to be young. So many other emotions ran through me every day. People suggested that I might find someone else. “No,” I’d tell them. “No one will ever take his place.” School forms would ask about the kids’ family situation. Were their parents married, divorced? I’m not a single mother. I’m raising the kids with my husband! Even if he’s not here. I always think about what he would want to do. One night, alone in my bedroom, I picked up the laundry basket off the treadmill. I suddenly felt as if Chris was there with me, somehow hovering two feet off the ground. He grinned. “I’m working on something for you,” he said. And I knew he meant he was trying to hook me up with a man. I jerked back. Had I really heard that? Was he really there? The room was empty, but I had the strongest feeling that he was there. I could feel his grin. I became furious. “How dare you!” I screamed in my head. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you! What’s wrong with you?” I walked out of the room. I blocked him out for a while, partly because of that incident, partly because of how overwhelming the emotions were. Finally I realized I didn’t want to do that. And one night toward the end of the year, I said aloud, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to block you out.” The room was empty, but I sensed he might be with me. “I am so sorry!” I repeated. Then I started bawling. I felt as if he came over and put his arm around my waist. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. His voice, in a whisper, but one I felt rather than heard: I didn’t want to hurt you. I cried and cried. I felt a million things--sorry, crazy, insane. I finally glanced up and looked in the mirror. I was alone. “I’m not losing it,” I told myself. “What little I have left, I’m not losing it.” I slumped off to bed, exhausted.

I tell Jack by accident. We’re talking on the phone about unprotected sex, how it isn’t good for people with our particular temperament, our anxiety like an incorrigible weed. He asks if I’ve had any sex that was “really stressful,” and out the story comes, before I can even consider how to share it. Jack is upset. Angry, though not at me. I’m crying, even though I don’t want to. It’s not cathartic, or helping me prove my point. I still make joke after joke, but my tears are betraying me, making me appear clear about my pain when I’m not. Jack is in Belgium. It’s late there, he’s so tired, and I’d rather not be having this conversation this way. “It isn’t your fault,” he tells me, thinking it’s what I need to hear. “There’s no version of this where it’s your fault.” I feel like there are fifty ways it’s my fault. I fantasized. I took the big pill and the small pill, stuffed myself with substances to make being out in the world with people my own age a little bit easier. To lessen the space between me and everyone else. I was hungry to be seen. But I also know that at no moment did I consent to being handled that way. I never gave him permission to be rough, to stick himself inside me without a barrier between us. I never gave him permission. In my deepest self I know this, and the knowledge of it has kept me from sinking. I curl up against the wall, wishing I hadn’t told him. “I love you so much,” he says. “I’m so sorry that happened.” Then his voice changes, from pity to something sharper. “I have to tell you something, and I hope you’ll understand.” “Yes?” I squeak. “I can’t wait to fuck you. I hope you know why I’m saying that. Because nothing’s changed. I’m planning how I’m going to do it.” “You’re going to do it?” “All different ways.” I cry harder. “You better.” I have to go put on a denim vest for a promotional appearance at Levi’s Haus of Strauss. I tell Jack I have to hang up now, and he moans “No” like I’m a babysitter wrenching him from the arms of his mother who is all dressed up for a party. He’s sleepy now. I can hear it. Emotions are exhausting to have. “I love you so much,” I tell him, tearing up all over again. I hang up and go to the mirror, prepared to see eyeliner dripping down my face, tracks through my blush and foundation. I’m in LA, so bring it on, universe: I can only expect to go down Lohan style. But I’m surprised to find that my face is intact, dewy even. Makeup is all where it ought to be. I look all right. I look like myself.

I rail a lot against passion, because I feel like passion can be very exclusionary, and very elitist, and it can leave a lot of people feeling like they don't belong... I'm much more interested in allowing people to follow curiosity, which is a much more gentle impulse that doesn't require that you sacrifice your entire life for something. It's more of kind of a scavenger hunt, where you're allowed to pick up these tiny beautiful little clues along the pathway. It's more of a tap on the shoulder that asks you to turn your attention one inch to the left. Oh that's a little bit mildly interesting - what is that? Okay now I'm going to take that clue... I'm going to take it another inch, and I'm going to take it another inch. Rather than this idea that the symphony is born whole, because you sit down and you're struck by lightening and then you start to create. Curiosity I think, is a far more friendly way to do creativity than passion." ...this is why I say the path of curiosity is the scavenger hunt, because it took my probably three years between "gee it would be nice to put some plants in my backyard" to here I am in the South Pacific exploring the history of moss and inventing this giant novel. You know I think everybody thinks that creativity comes in lightening strikes, but I think it comes with whispers. And then the whispers can grow thunderous over time if you are patient enough to explore it, almost in the way that a scientist would. Be open to - you don't need to know why you are interested in this, it will be revealed if you continue to investigate. That's all that curiosity asks of you. Passion asks you to throw it all in the bonfire. And curiosity is way more generous in that it just says - give me a little bit of your time and let's see what we can do. Fear is part of our make-up, it's something that's inherent in us, it's a protective device. My experience with fear is to permit it to exist and then to figure out how to work with it. And to me working with fear is what courage is. I've never started any project that I wasn't afraid... during the entire thing.And the conversation that I have with fear is not to say you are the death of creativity and I can't be creative because you exist, but rather to say: "You are part of the family of my consciousness. You are one of the emotions that I possess and I hear your complaint. I see your anxiety and I see everything you are putting before me about how this is going to be a disaster, and how I'm going to die and how everyone's going to mock me and how I'm going to fail... and I thank you so much for your contribution, but your sister creativity and I are going to go off on this journey now and do this thing but you are allowed to be in the car. We're going on a road trip, but I don't expect you to not come." And once you allow fear to just be present it seems to quiet down and go to sleep and then you can go about your work. But it's never out of the picture and I don't waste my energy trying to kick it out of the picture because that feels to me just like a colossal exhausting waste of energy. Whereas a radical kind of inclusive self acceptance seems to be a way to create a lot more.

The first necessary component of wonder is profound gratitude. But the word "gratitude" may need a little explanation. It comes from the same word as the word "freedom"; when something is "gratis", we consider it free. Gratitude is the freeing expression of a free heart toward one who freely gave. There are actually two basic emotions within the grateful heart. One erupts on the spur of the moment; it is unstudied and unenduring. A raise from the boss, a new car, a generous gift. All those are wonderful things, but they are not really full of wonder, they can easily be forgotten and replaced by one unpleasant experience. The gratitude that I’m speaking of is not sporadic, it cannot be spent or exhausted. It is the transformation of a mind that is more grateful for the •giver• than for the gift; for the •purpose• than for the present; for •life itself• rather than for abundance. It values a relationship rather than any benefit made possible by the relationship. Even more, it is the capacity to receive, rather than the gift itself, to trust even when the moment seems devoid of immediate fulfillment. It is more than happiness; it is more than peace. In short, where there is no gratitude, there is no wonder.

What’s my truth? What do I want and need? What makes me like myself? Who do I think I am? These are then replaced by Who do you think I am? How do you think I’m doing? What do you need me to need? and Who do I need to be so that you will like me?

Forgive me if I’m a little off. Fucking five dudes on the regular is exhausting.” That’s a lie, it’s thrilling. You just don’t want them to know how fucking thrilled you are. You love this, love being bad and finding yourself in trouble and feeling emotions like thunderstorms.

I don’t ever deserve your forgiveness, and I won’t presume to ask for it, but you deserve my groveling and my apology and so here it is. I am so sorry that it hurts. I am so sorry that when I look in the mirror at myself, all I feel is hatred. I am so sorry that sometimes I can’t sleep, and I pace the room and drink and cry until I’m so drunk and emotionally exhausted that I can’t remember why I started drinking in the first place.

On a good day, if you asked me to describe myself, I’d say I’m a thirty-six-year-old, happily married mum of three, and I’d stand by that, that’s a nice description, right? On a bad day, I’d say I’m an emotionally exhausted mess of a woman, who is hanging on by a thin thread every single day trying to be a good mother, wife, friend, daughter and colleague with a social life of her own, a successful career and a body that I most definitely have ‘let go’.

Before, he could feel her emotions, but now she could feel his. Even though he’d taken both her pain and her sorrow, that wasn’t what he was feeling now. He felt desire. Desperation. Lust. Obsession. He wanted her. She was all he wanted. All he thought about. She felt it in the way the kiss began to shift from reckless and hungry to languorous and savoring, as if he’d considered this for a very long time and now he was acting out all the things he’d imagined. A faraway place that Tella tried to ignore told her this was all a great mistake – Jacks wasn’t really the one she wanted, Legend was. No matter what he did, or what he was, it would always be Legend. Maybe she could never actually have him, but she wanted him. If she was going to kiss one of the villains, she wanted it to be Legend, not Jacks. She needed to push Jacks away. But Legend never touched her anymore. Even if Legend had been there, he might not have held her, let alone kiss her. And it felt so good to be kissed, to be cherished and touched. To feel desire instead of pain. The sorrow was almost gone, and the kiss grew more intense. Or maybe now that Tella was no longer feeling crushing despair or seeing death, she could truly feel the entire kiss, and every inch of Jacks’s body as it pressed against hers. But even in her muddled state, Tella knew she couldn’t let it continue. She ripped her bleeding hand free of Jacks’s and ended the kiss. Jacks made no attempt stop her. But he made no further effort to move away. They were both on their sides, chests pressed together, legs all tangled. The pain and the sorrow and the hurt were gone. But so was all of her strength. She was boneless. Empty. There were splatters of blood all over her dress and her hands, and all over him. Something intimate, beyond the physical, had just passed between them. Red tracks ran down his cheeks, ghosts of tears he’d cried for her. She should have tried to leave. But her body was exhausted. And she liked the way it felt when Jacks wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his cool chest as if he wanted her to stay. After she regained her strength, she would go back to hating him. All she cared about now was that the pain was gone. ‘Thank you, Jacks.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I’m not sure I did you a favor, my love.

Mixed in with my anger toward him are also memories of the good times and reminders of why I fell in love with him all those years ago. I’m like an assorted bag of emotions at the moment, fit to explode, and it’s exhausting.

Before then stood Lessa Craier. “Mother,” said Inara, her breath catching in her throat. Behind her, rather worse for wear, was another dead woman: Kissen. “Ina?” the godkiller said, her voice hoarse and breaking. She looked terrible. Worse than Inara felt. But Lessa Craier looked wonderful: her blade out and bloody, poised. Her mother’s long hair was slicked in a perfect braid, her tabard edged in Craier green and silver, embroidered with birds and leaves, and her leather chest plate was the same one she had kept in her armoury in their manor. Their burned manor. It took hearing Kissen call Ina’s name for Lessa’s mouth to tighten in recognition. No wonder: Inara must look very different to the soft little girl who had never left her home. Her mother’s colours fractured out into white, pure panic, then shifted into a fountain of golden foam, love or relief, before disappearing once more. Pulled back inside her frame. Hidden. Kissen moved. Inara didn’t have time to think before the veins charged past Lessa and pulled Inara away from the fire and into her arms, far from Arren’s blade. “Kissen,” Inara said tentatively. She was real. She was completely real. No dream could smell so bad. Inara grabbed her back, holding in for safety, for terror and grief. “You’re…you’re alive.” She held her, tightly, as tight as she could hold a thing, and Kissen held her back as if she could use her body to shield her from the world. Lessa didn’t come to her, Lessa didn’t move. “And kicking,” Kissen said. “Barely. I’m so sorry, I tried…I tried to come back to you.” “Kissen!” Joy was on Elo’s face and in his colours, shining the mellow hues of fresh-baked bread with the reds of Kissen’s hair. “Quiet,” said Arren, holding him tighter, but even the knife to his throat couldn’t dim Elo’s utter relief. “Elogast,” said Kissen, her voice gruff with emotion, her eyes going from the knife, to Arren, and back to Elo, calculating. She covered it with a joke: “Looks like you’re in trouble again.” Elo huffed out a breath of a laugh. “I should have known…” he said, his voice cracking with exhaustion and wonder. He grinned. “I should have known you were too stubborn to die.

Before them stood Lessa Craier. “Mother,” said Inara, her breath catching in her throat. Behind her, rather worse for wear, was another dead woman: Kissen. “Ina?” the godkiller said, her voice hoarse and breaking. She looked terrible. Worse than Inara felt. But Lessa Craier looked wonderful: her blade out and bloody, poised. Her mother’s long hair was slicked in a perfect braid, her tabard edged in Craier green and silver, embroidered with birds and leaves, and her leather chest plate was the same one she had kept in her armoury in their manor. Their burned manor. It took hearing Kissen call Ina’s name for Lessa’s mouth to tighten in recognition. No wonder: Inara must look very different to the soft little girl who had never left her home. Her mother’s colours fractured out into white, pure panic, then shifted into a fountain of golden foam, love or relief, before disappearing once more. Pulled back inside her frame. Hidden. Kissen moved. Inara didn’t have time to think before the veiga charged past Lessa and pulled Inara away from the fire and into her arms, far from Arren’s blade. “Kissen,” Inara said tentatively. She was real. She was completely real. No dream could smell so bad. Inara grabbed her back, holding in for safety, for terror and grief. “You’re…you’re alive.” She held her, tightly, as tight as she could hold a thing, and Kissen held her back as if she could use her body to shield her from the world. Lessa didn’t come to her, Lessa didn’t move. “And kicking,” Kissen said. “Barely. I’m so sorry, I tried…I tried to come back to you.” “Kissen!” Joy was on Elo’s face and in his colours, shining the mellow hues of fresh-baked bread with the reds of Kissen’s hair. “Quiet,” said Arren, holding him tighter, but even the knife to his throat couldn’t dim Elo’s utter relief. “Elogast,” said Kissen, her voice gruff with emotion, her eyes going from the knife, to Arren, and back to Elo, calculating. She covered it with a joke: “Looks like you’re in trouble again.” Elo huffed out a breath of a laugh. “I should have known…” he said, his voice cracking with exhaustion and wonder. He grinned. “I should have known you were too stubborn to die.

You know, I’ve been called strong and resilient before. And I used to think it was a compliment that I needed to be those things to be appreciated. But I get tired, too. I get emotional, even though I don’t show it like everyone else. But I’m exhausted. I want my life to be easy and uncomplicated.” A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it away. I held her face between my hands. “I don’t want to scare you, but I’ve never felt like this before. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or us. I’m here, baby. Through thick and thin, I will be right here for you.

He’s fucking gorgeous. I can’t believe I’m saying that about another dude, but fuck me, he’s beautiful. His eyes are amazing. These really pale silvery pools—pools, Sloane! I’m calling his eyes fucking pools. Just seeing him makes me smile. He’s funny, sweet, damn sexy, and I don’t know why the hell he fell in love with me. No clue. I do know when I see him with Seb, I want to seriously punch Seb in the face, and if he wasn’t such a fucking nice guy and Hobbs’s brother, I would have already done it. God, I want to kick his ass! And I don’t give a fuck he’s a tiger Therian. I can totally take him down. It’s driving me fucking crazy.” Ash let out a frustrated growl. He turned to face Sloane. “I know I hurt Cael, but….” He returned to the chair and dropped down into it. “Fuck me sideways. I don’t know what to do with all this emotional shit. It’s fucking exhausting.” He let his head fall back. “Fuck this shit.” “Jesus, Ash. Why don’t you talk to Cael?” Damn. Usually he could gauge how upset his friend was over something by the number of times he dropped the “F” bomb. “And

You said to get involved with people, that I can’t learn about connections in a vacuum.” I agreed. “So what’s not working?” She pulled a long list from her purse. “This,” Linda said, “is a list I put together of all the involvements I’ve had in the past few months. And nothing’s happening.” I read the list, which looked something like this: Dancing lessons: ballroom, disco, and line Sports: sailing, rollerblading, golf, and tennis Music: opera, modern, and piano lessons Art: ceramics and museums Spiritual: Bible study, worship, and missions Career: Ongoing training, night school to earn an MBA “What are you grinning at?” Linda asked me. I wasn’t even aware I was smiling. I told her, “This is a proud moment for me. I’ve never met a real live renaissance woman.” “Now I’m really confused,” Linda said. I explained, “Linda, this is the most well-rounded, comprehensive, and exhausting list I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine how you can even get up in the mornings. But it’s not solving your problem. “These are all great activities, designed to develop you and help you in your life. But each of them is primarily functional, rather than relational. Their goal is competence in some skill, or recreation, or learning more about God’s creation. But relationship isn’t the goal. These are ‘doing’ things, not ‘connecting’ things.” Linda started to get it. “You know, I’ve noticed that I am talking to people at these activities. But all the talk is about tennis or management theories. I’ve wondered when someone in the classroom was going to ask me about my emotional and spiritual life.” “Don’t hold your breath,” I said.

Oh, Hunter, I’m sorry,” she said on the crest of a sob. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” “You rip my heart out and it should not hurt?” His teeth closed on her earlobe, nipping lightly, sending shivers over her skin. “You spit upon all that I am, and it should not hurt? You abandon me, you dishonor me, and it should not hurt?” The raw emotion in his voice brought tears to her eyes. “I never intended to dishonor you…” Loretta longed to put her arms around him but was quickly reminded of her bonds when she tried. His mouth claimed hers, hot and demanding, yet strangely gentle. What followed was beautiful. Unable to remain passive, Loretta responded to him with a spiraling passion that both shocked and disoriented her. At some point Hunter cut the leather on her wrists and ankles, but she was too mindless to realize. He was like a fire inside her, embers licked to low flames, building quickly to an inferno. There was no fear. And no pain. Just a bittersweet joining, becoming one in a way she had never dreamed possible. Afterward Hunter drew her gently into his arms and reminded her of the promises he had made her, that she would never experience brutality or shame in his arms, only love. “How can you not hear the song my heart sings, Blue Eyes?” Loretta knew he was referring to far more than his lovemaking. Sobs built pressure in her chest, then crawled up her throat, gaining force until they tore from her, dry and ragged. “Oh, Hunter, you have to understand. You think only of yourself and your rights. What of mine?” Hunter drew her head back down to his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. Her warm tears fell on his skin and trickled, cold and wet, under his arm. He closed his eyes, his mind replaying her words, the whispers a torment, the questions unanswerable. Did he think only of himself? Yes. To do otherwise meant losing her. Long after his wife fell into an exhausted sleep, he lay awake, staring into the darkness, searching within himself for a solution. There was none…

I've always felt as if writing a novel is like giving birth. After the process is over, I am emotionally exhausted. But then the work's not done. I have to then raise the book to adulthood, through marketing and giveaways and pandhandling for reviews (its college education). And even while I'm nurturing it into something that is well adjusted and lovable, I've got other "kids" that need equal attention. It truly is work. My hat is off to real parents everywhere, who raise human children and novel ones at the same time. You are amazing.

I’m having a hard time concentrating at work. Why in the world did I give the task force members offices on my floor? It seemed like a good idea at the time . . . to evict the old guard and move in the staff that represented the company’s one hope for the future. I regret it now, though, because I can’t go an hour without seeing Kathleen Burke. I can’t remember when I’ve felt this frustrated, and that’s saying a lot because I have two preschoolers at home. I noticed Kathleen’s attractiveness the day we met. I noticed it the same way that I might notice that a woman’s hair is gray. It was just a fact. It didn’t matter to me or affect me. A month and a half has passed since then. A month and a half of me sitting in the board room during task force meetings, watching Kathleen give presentations on newfound information she feels passionately about. She always feels passionately about the information she presents. A month and a half of looking up from my desk and seeing her slender body pass by my office in tailored skirts and silky shirts. A month and a half of disagreeing with her over new computer software. When she thinks I’m being pig-headed, her nose scrunches and her brown eyes blaze. My mom told me that her family is Irish. It’s obviously true. Kathleen has the fiery will and the red glint in her hair to prove it. She can’t seem to understand that I’m not being pig-headed about new computer software. I’m just being right. A month and a half of running into her in the break room. She tilts her head when she refills her coffee mug, which causes her long hair to slide over her shoulder and upper arm. A month and a half of hearing her laughter from a distance. A month and a half of receiving correspondence from her signed “Respectfully, Kathleen E. Burke.” Why the E? There are no Kathleen R. or B. or K. Burkes who work at Bradford Shipping. The E is pretentious. A month and a half of looking back every evening when I leave and seeing her office light on. Kathleen’s attractiveness is more than a fact to me now. She’s annoyingly pretty, she’s persistent, and she’s impossible to ignore. For more than two years, I’ve been loyal to Robin’s memory. That’s how I want things to continue. That’s how I like it. Willow and Nora are my life. I spend every hour outside of work with them, and I’m exhausted at the end of each day. There’s no room in my schedule or in my emotions for a relationship. I’m even more certain that I’m not meant to be a boyfriend or a husband now than I was when Robin died. So the distraction of Kathleen makes me feel like I’m betraying a commitment I made to myself. Which, in turn, makes me angry. I’ve been asking God to take away this stupid pull I feel toward Kathleen. Or better yet, to give her a new job in another city or state. My

He didn’t have to tell me that. I knew Hank better than anyone else. He went out of his way not to hurt people. “And I love you even more for it. But you should know, I’m willing to be hurt because that’s what love is.” Hank stared at me out of the corners of his eyes. Clearly he was questioning my sanity. “It’s true,” I said with a firm nod. “It’s not always hot sex and romantic candlelit dinners. Or picnics in the park or fun days at the zoo. True love exists in the gaps between those moments. It’s in the arguments, where you’re so angry at each other that you may want to throw a tantrum and walk out the door, but you don’t. It lives in the hard times when one of you is sick or exhausted, and you have to carry each other for miles with no rest, and even though your body aches and you want to let go, you don’t.” “I don’t think I’ve ever known that kind of love.” He glanced at his hands in his lap. “My relationships have always been the bad kind. Where one of us gives up or gives in.” “Well, love that is worth anything isn’t like that. It blooms in the dead of winter because we have fed its soul in the spring and summer. That is what I fight for. You may not feel what I do because you lack the memories I have, but you feel something. I can see it in the way you look at me or touch me, and I can see you fighting it. Maybe because you’re afraid of hurting me or because you don’t understand what these emotions are. I don’t really know, but you should know this: Fighting it won’t make it go away, and it won’t change how our story will end. We will get married. We will grow old together. And before we breathe our last, the final words we will utter will be each other’s names.

From the true self, I asked the shameful part what it wanted. I jumped up, pacing as I explained myself. “I relate the shameful part to being like a child who had done something wrong—sent to his room— waiting for his father to come home and punish him.” I stopped in front of Keith’s desk, bending toward him. “It’s frustrating.” I rested both hands on the desktop, shaking my head. “I can’t latch onto one good deed or intention to convince myself that there is decency within.” At this point, I became physically exhausted. I plopped into the love seat and spread my arms across the back of the chair. Keith made a minor adjustment to his spectacles with a forefinger pushing its bridge, then let the finger make its way down his nose as he thought, looking down. He looked up, fixed his eyes directly on me. "The anxiety part jumped in to prevent you from having to relive and experience the pain that the shameful part was carrying." "And,” I said, leaning forward, “if I connect with the anxiety and ask it from the true self what it wants, the answer is rest, peace of mind for body and soul.” Keith slowly nodded his head as I continued. “It wants to live without stressing over everything and anything in an attempt to achieve perfection. The anxiety put me in a survival mode, pumping me up with adrenalin, putting me on guard, alerting me that there was danger ahead. I understand how the anxiety feels. It doesn’t have to worry anymore. There is no more danger ahead. The true self is now running things. We are now going to be able to take a deep breath, relax, and be at peace with ourselves. I’m so thankful that I now won’t be burdened with the nonstop torturous uproar of emotions.

Unusual as this may seem, I was relieved that Nigel hadn’t fatally injured Silas,” Lucetta added as she inched just a little closer to Bram, enjoying the feel of his hand settled against her back and the fact that his large form was blocking her from some of the wind. “He’s an evil man—there’s no question about that—but . . . I wouldn’t have wanted him dead, no matter his transgressions.” Millie turned and considered Lucetta and Bram for a moment. “You do know that, as your acting chaperone, I’m supposed to insist that the two of you maintain a few inches of separation from each other at all times, and . . . I believe the recommended space to be maintained is six inches.” Lucetta blinked. “Is that an actual chaperoning rule, or one you just made up?” Frowning, Millie wrinkled her nose. “Abigail told me to enforce that particular rule at all times, but . . .” She gave a sad shake of her head. “I’m afraid I’ve been negligent in enforcing it, what with all the dangerous situations, arguments between you and your mother that pulled at everyone’s heartstrings, except perhaps Nigel’s—since I’m not certain he has a heart—and . . . Well, let us not forget the emotional toll returning to Virginia took on you in the first place.” Bram’s brows drew together as he caught Millie’s eye. “And what does that have to do with you being negligent in your duties?” “Lucetta needed comforting, of course, and I certainly wasn’t going to stand in the way of her getting that comfort from you.” As Bram and Millie continued bantering, Lucetta couldn’t help but think that Millie was exactly right. She had been emotionally exhausted throughout the time they’d spent in Virginia, coming to terms with her anger at her father, and coming to terms with the animosity she’d been holding for far too long against her mother. Bram had been a rock beside her through everything, and . . . oddly enough, she had not been opposed to the idea of leaning on that rock, nor had she been embarrassed that she’d needed his strength to soothe her when she felt a little overwhelmed, and . . . “. . . so don’t despair about your chaperoning abilities,” Bram was saying, tugging Lucetta straight back to the conversation at hand. “Since I’m fairly certain the six-inch rule isn’t a real rule, you’ve not failed as a chaperone just yet.” “I’m hoping I’m never called upon to chaperone again,” Millie said with an exaggerated sigh. “It’s far more difficult than I ever imagined, and definitely not for the faint of heart. Although . . . for the most part, you and Lucetta didn’t cause me too many difficulties.” Lucetta

Come on, Melinda. You can’t avoid it forever. We both know you’re pregnant.” “Ugh,” she said, accepting the cool, wet cloth. She pressed it to her face, her brow, her neck. She didn’t have any more to say. But Jack knew. There had been tears, exhaustion, nausea. She turned watering eyes up to him. He shrugged and said, “You eased up on the breast-feeding, popped an egg and I nailed it.” Her eyes narrowed as if to say she did not appreciate the explanation. He held out a hand to bring her to her feet. “You have to wean David,” he said. “Your body can’t completely nourish two children. You’ll get weak. You’re already exhausted.” “I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she said. “I’m barely over being pregnant.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t. Because you haven’t ever been pregnant.” He thought this would probably be a bad time to tell her that he did so understand, since he had lived with a pregnant person and listened very attentively to every complaint. “We should go see John right away, so you can find out how pregnant.” “How long have you suspected?” she asked him. “I don’t know. A few weeks. It was a little tougher this time….” “Oh, yeah?” “Well, yeah. Since you haven’t had a period since the first time I laid a hand on you. God, for a supposedly sterile woman, you certainly are fertile.” Then he grinned, fully aware it would have got him smacked if he hadn’t been holding the baby. She whirled away from him and went to sit on their bed. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Well, he’d been expecting exactly this. There’d been a lot of crying lately and he knew she was going to be mighty pissed off. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and pulled her close. David patted her head. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not delivering this one. I want that understood.” “Try not to be cute,” she said through her tears. “I think my back already hurts.” “Can I get you something? Soda? Crackers? Arsenic?” “Very funny.” She turned her head to look at him. “Are you upset?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry it happened so soon. Sorry for you. I know there are times you get damned uncomfortable and I wanted you to get a break.” “I should never have gone away with you.” “Nah. You were already pregnant. Wanna bet?” “You knew before that?” “I wondered why you were so emotional, and that was a possible reason. I never bought your whole sterile thing. But I don’t have a problem with it. I wanted more kids. I like the idea of a larger family than the three of us. I come from a big family.” “There will not be five, I can guarantee you that,” she said. Then she bored a hole through him with her eyes. “Snip, snip.” “You’re not going to blame this on me, Mel. I suggested birth control. A couple of times, as a matter of fact. You were the one said it could never happen twice. And then explained that whole business about not ovulating while you’re nursing. How’s that working for you so far? Hmm?” “Screw you,” she said, not sweetly. “Well, obviously…” “I’d like you to understand I wasn’t relying on that breast-feeding thing. I’m a midwife—I know that’s not foolproof. I really didn’t think it possible that… Shit,” she said. She sighed deeply. “I just barely got back into my jeans….” “Yeah, those jeans. Whoa, damn. Those jeans really do it to me. No one wears a pair of jeans like you do.” “Aren’t you getting a little sick of having a fat wife?” “You’re not fat. You’re perfect. I love your body, pregnant and unpregnant. I know you’re trying to get me all worked up, but I’m not going there. You can try to pick a fight with me all day and I just won’t play. It wouldn’t be a fair fight—you’re out to get me and we both know it. Do you have appointments this morning?” “Why?” “Because I want to go to Grace Valley for an ultrasound. I want to know when I have to have the house done.” *

Girl time, I’m also learning, can be emotionally exhausting and more than a bit confusing. She’s

I’m sure you have felt the exhaustion, fatigue, and the drain on your emotional and spiritual life as you balance being a wife, mother, and everything else you have to do. When we are stressed, we can look to a lot of things to feed our souls, such as a fun girls’ night out or a long movie or time surfing on the Web or a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies! But anything less than God Himself will leave our souls unsatisfied. Psalm

Well, it's a good story to tell Arielle," she mused, her lips tipping up. "When your daddy was fighting for us, he got so excited that he swooned like a Victorian maiden." "I didn't swoon. I passed out from exhaustion." "Same thing." "Not at all the same thing." "Tomatoes, tomahtoes." "You're going to tell Arielle that I'm her daddy?" I asked softly, my smile dropping as I searched her face. "That I fought for her?" "Do you want me to?" she replied, her lips trembling. "Yes." "Then, yeah. I will." I shuddered, closing my eyes against the emotion that swamped me. I wanted to both scream from the rooftops and pull the covers over out heads to block out the world. The relief was all encompassing.

Privilege theory offers the liberal multicultural subject a phantasmatic reality. It gives that subject the tools to name society’s bad apples: they are easily discernable; they are those who don’t check their privilege, blind to the social and cultural power that they undeservedly enjoy. And if privilege theory calls on you to curtail the pleasures of your own privilege, to willingly renounce your culturally given claims on the world, you are rewarded with “libidinal profit,” with what Lacan calls a “surplus-enjoyment,” an enjoyment-in-sacrifice or enjoyment-inconfession. Suffering—the feeling of guilt from realizing that you can never fully eradicate your privilege (again, privilege theory concedes that “one can no more renounce privilege than one can stop breathing”), that you are enjoying the fruits of an impure liberalism, that you’re taking up the space of someone more deserving, and so on—and exhaustion— the emotional cost for your unflinching vigilance in naming racism and denouncing prejudice wherever it appears—ironically become signs not of your defeat but of your self-enlightenment, moral righteousness, and true commitment to social justice. There is thus a kind of illicit satisfaction—an unconscious enjoyment—not only in exposing the blind spots of others, in the rhetorical disciplining of others, but in your own self-discipline, in your perceived suffering and exhaustion as well, amounting to an abstract testimony to the heroism of whiteness (“another self-glorification in which whiteness is equated with moral rectitude,” as Butler puts it) and the progress of multicultural liberalism: it’s not perfect, but we’re getting there . Along the way, privilege theory redeems its practitioners: since its biopolitical logic tends to individualize racism— check your privilege—your self-check exempts you from the charge of racism. It is fundamentally the problem of individual others (typically that of the less educated, white blue collar workers), concealing society’s “civil racism,” the pervading, naturalized racism of everyday liberal life. In contrast, psychoanalysis compels the liberal multicultural subject to confront a starker reality. For psychoanalysis, the routinized and ritualized call to check your privilege appears too convenient; it enables the liberal multicultural subject to diminish his or her guilt ( I ’m doing something personally about implicit biases) without needing to take on the sociopolitical framework directly. If privilege theorists are pressed, they will gladly confess that they know that it is not enough to denounce the unearned privileges of others without simultaneously attending to the networks of power relations that sustain such advantages. And yet in their active scholarly activist lives, they act as if it were enough, displaying the psychoanalytic structure of fetishistic disavowal (I know very well, but all the same). They maintain a split attitude toward antiracism. They know very well that denouncing white privilege is necessary but not sufficient, yet they don’t really believe that this critico-gesture does not accomplish the task at hand. Privilege theory, we might say, “wants social change with no actual change.” Rather than addressing the social antagonisms immanent to capitalism, it misapprehends the framework (and its enablement of racism). Privilege theory typically only sees social structures as the sum of their individual parts, their individual consciences. At its base level, it provides you with the fantasy of intervention and action; it offers you criticism without critique . For the proponents of privilege theory, social change follows the gradual and predictable path of reform.

No Dogs, find somewhere else." I looked at Cook, then back at the attendant. "What about cats?" I asked. "Cats are allowed," she said, giving me the 'you are a dumbass' look that's really popular with people these days. "Oh, great!" I said, then looked at Cook, "I unadopt you, get the hell out of here and go back to the shelter." Cook's ears went flat, he yelped in emotional anguish, his tail drooped, and he dramatically slunk out the front door, his belly dragging across the ground. Moments later, a small black cat rushed into the building and leapt at me, I caught him like we'd practiced it. The attendant's face went slack, like her brain had just shut off, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. "Oh my aren't you a cutie! A new cat, just what I always wanted!" I beamed at the attendant, then my face went flat. "How much for a room, I'm fucking exhausted.

Now, first of all, you're going to start telling yourself that you are not defined by your job. It's there to provide you with a salary, period. These people, they're just turds floating in your vicinity. I'm going to give you three weeks of sick leave, and you're going to flush the toilet.

A glut of emotions roils inside me. I'm ashamed of yelling at her, of running away, of throwing up. I'm furious at her for bringing up the past. I'm outraged. I'm exhausted. [...] "You can't do this to me," I tell her. "When I try to talk about it, you decide it's not time. But then you go and spring it on me. It's not fair." [...] I tell her to fuck off. I tell her I can't think straight. I tell her to go to hell. I tell her I'll do it. I tell her I can't do it. I tell her it's pointless. I tell her none of those things. [...] that's all pointless speculation. Because this summer will be my last. And that, most likely, is why I really reacted the way I did. Because it's true and it's coming and it's happening, and she's acting like this is just any other summer. Not that she knows. Not that I can tell her.

A glut of emotions roils inside me. I'm ashamed of yelling at her, of running away, of throwing up. I'm furious at her for bringing up the past. I'm outraged. I'm exhausted. [...] "You can't do this to me," I tell her. "When I try to talk about it, you decide it's not time. But then you go and spring it on me. It's not fair," [...] I tell her to fuck off. I tell her I can't think straight. I tell her to go to hell. I tell her I'll do it. I tell her I can't do it. I tell her it's pointless. I tell her none of those things. [...] that's all pointless speculation. Because this summer will be my last. And that, most likely, is why I really reacted the way I did. Because it's true and it's coming and it's happening, and she's acting like this is just any other summer. Not that she knows. Not that I can tell her.

This is not to say that I have outgrown those elemental desires that drew me to transhumanism—just that they express themselves in more conventional ways. Over the intervening years, I have given up alcohol, drugs, sugar, and bread. On any given week, my Google search history is a compendium of cleanse recipes, high-intensity workouts, and the glycemic index of various exotic fruits. I spend my evenings in the concrete and cavernous halls of a university athletic center, rowing across virtual rivers and cycling up virtual hills, guided by the voice of my virtual trainer, Jessica, who came with an app that I bought. It’s easy enough to justify these rituals of health optimization as more than mere vanity, especially when we’re so frequently told that physical health determines our mental and emotional well-being. But if I’m honest with myself, these pursuits have less to do with achieving a static state of well-being than with the thrill of possibility that lies at the root of all self-improvement: the delusion that you are climbing an endless ladder of upgrades and solutions. The fact that I am aware of this delusion has not weakened its power over me. Even as I understand the futility of the pursuit, I persist in an almost mystical belief that I can, through concerted effort, feel better each year than the last, as though the trajectory of my life led toward not the abyss but some pinnacle of total achievement and solution, at which point I will dissolve into pure energy. Still, maintaining this delusion requires a kind of willful vigilance that can be exhausting.

Did Nesta say why she won't train?' 'Because she hates me.' Feyre snorted. 'Cassian, Nesta does not hate you. Believe me.' 'She sure as shit acts like it.' Feyre shook her head. 'No, she doesn't.' Her words were pained enough that he frowned. 'She doesn't hate you, either.' he said quietly. Feyre shrugged. The gesture made his chest ache. 'For a while, I thought she didn't. But now I don't know.' 'I don't understand why you two can't just...' He struggled for the right word. 'Get along? Be civil? Smile at each other?' Feyre's laugh was hollow. 'It's always been that way.' 'Why?' 'I have no idea. I mean, it was always that way with us, and our mother. She only had an interest in Nesta. She ignored me, and saw Elain as barely more than a doll to dress up, but Nesta was hers. Our mother made sure we knew it. Or she just cared so little what we thought or did that she didn't bother to hide it from us.' Resentment and long-held pain laced every word. That a mother would do such a thing to her children... 'But when we fell into poverty, when I started hunting, it got worse. Our mother was gone, and our father wasn't exactly present. He wasn't fully there. So it was me and Nesta, always at each other's throats.' Feyre rubbed her face. 'I'm too exhausted to go over every detail. It's all just a tangled mess.' Cassian refrained from observing that both sisters seemed to need each other- that Nesta perhaps needed Feyre more than she realised. And from mentioning that this mess between the two females hurt him more than he could express. Feyre sighed, 'That's my long way of saying that if Nesta hated you... I know what it looks like, and she doesn't hate you.' 'She might after what I said to her tonight.

tiny seed of doubt sprouting inside her gut. Could this life-altering affair be nothing more than a one-sided mirage? She couldn’t keep her journalistic instincts from attempting to connect dots. She recalled every possible aversion of her lover’s eyes, each word of affirmation that may not have been as sincere and heartfelt as the previous. And now this. Karina released an audible breath and brought her hand to her head. She felt the sharp edge of her one-quarter-karat, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring, and thought about Reinaldo, her Brazilian husband of the last ten years. There had been some good times … moments she’d always remember. But as she recalled the hikes up Pikes Peak, the mountainous bike rides, and games of pool while drinking a few beers, she admitted that Reinaldo had been nothing more than a friend—a convenient friend at that. But one who had helped her produce two kids, two adorable little rug rats. Would they ever look at Mommy the same way, if they found out who the real Karina was? When they found out. Karina couldn’t let her insecurities question her new path in life—a path she’d ignored far too long. Determined to make this relationship work, her mind sharpened, and she leaned over the side of the bed and snatched her smartphone from the back pocket of her khakis. No sweet text messages. She licked her lips, then scrolled to her contacts and tapped the cell number. “Hi, Karina. Miss me already?” the voice on the other end asked. Karina couldn’t help but smile. “I just wanted to hear your voice again before I packed up my things and strolled back into my old life.” “I know what you mean,” Karina’s lover said. “You don’t have a spouse and two kids,” Karina said with a tone more harsh than she’d intended. “Oh, sorry.” “Not a problem. I get it. I really do.” A wave of emotion overcame Karina. A single tear bubbled out of the corner of her eye and she sniffled. “Are you okay, dear?” “I …” “You can tell me, Karina. We share everything.” “I just wanted our evening together to be special. You mean so much to me … how I see myself. How I see our future.” “I’m so sorry my work got in our way. Just know that you hold a special place in my heart.” Karina could hear sincerity, which warmed her heart. “I love you.” “I love you too, Karina.” Muffled sounds broke Karina’s concentration. Was that another person’s voice? “What was that noise? Where are you?” Tension rippled up her spine. “Oh, I just walked in my door. I’m exhausted, dear. Let’s make plans for early next week. We can both relax and have some fun at my new place. We can talk about our future.” The pressure in Karina’s head eased. They kissed into

First I’m taking your sexy ass to the shower. After that, I’m taking you to bed and making love to you until you’re so exhausted that you can’t help but fall asleep. I know how your mind works Miss Cooper, and I know that if I don’t wear you out you’ll be up all night thinking about what could have happened. You got very little sleep last night, we made love for hours this afternoon and then we threw some unexpected travel and a hell of a lot of emotion onto the menu. You need to be loved hard so that you can get some real sleep.

That turned me into a kind of patchy guy. But I have my life, I'm living it. It's twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there's something there. An that something is always greater than these emotions of mine.

Cooper, a host of works by American nature writers, and I’ve never in reading a single one of those pages felt one tenth of the emotion that fills me before these shores. And yet I’ll keep on reading, and writing. Two or three times an hour, a sharp crack breaks up my thoughts. The lake is shattering along a fault line. Like surf, birdsong, or the roar of waterfalls, the crumpling of an ice mass won’t keep us awake. A motor running, or someone snoring, or water dripping off a roof, on the other hand, is unbearable. I can’t help thinking of the dead. The thousands of Russians swallowed up by the lake.5 Do the souls of the drowned struggle to the surface? Can they get past the ice? Do they find the hole that opens up to the sky? Now there’s a touchy subject to raise with Christian fundamentalists. It took me five hours to reach Elohin. Volodya welcomed me with a hug and a “Hello, neighbor.” Now there are seven or eight of us around the wooden table dunking cookies in our tea: some fishermen passing through, myself, and our hosts. We talk about our lives and I’m exhausted already. Intoxicated by the potluck company, the fishermen argue, constantly correcting one another with grand gestures of disgust and jumping down one another’s throats. Cabins are prisons. Friendship doesn’t survive anything, not even togetherness. Outside the window, the wind keeps up its nonsense. Clouds of snow rush by with the regularity of phantom trains. I think about the titmouse. I miss it already. It’s crazy how quickly one becomes attached to creatures. I’m seized with pity for these struggling things. The titmice stay in the forest in the icy cold; they’re not snobs like swallows, which spend the winter in Egypt. After twenty minutes, we fall silent, and Volodya looks outside. He spends hours sitting in front of the window pane, his face half in shadow, half bathed in the light off the lake. The light gives him the craggy features of some heroic foot soldier. Time wields over skin the power water has over the earth. It digs deep as it passes. Evening, supper. A heated conversation with one of the fishermen, in which I learn that Jews run the world (but in France it’s the Arabs); Stalin, now there was a real leader; the Russians are invincible (that pipsqueak Hitler bit off more than he could chew); communism is a top-notch system; the Haitian earthquake was triggered by the shockwave from an American bomb; September 11 was a Yankee plot; gulag historians are unpatriotic; and the French are homosexuals. I think I’m going to space out my visits. FEBRUARY 26 Volodya and Irina live like tightrope walkers. They have no contact with the inhabitants on the other side of Baikal. No one crosses the lake. The opposite shore is another world, the one where the sun rises. Fishermen and inspectors living north or south of this station sometimes visit my hosts, who rarely venture into the mountains of their

If I’d been allowed, even once, to say, “Hey, I’m having kind of a shitty day,” I think I would have been fine. If my dad had been there to give me that look like, “These people are crazy,” I would have been able to handle anything. But admitting that I was lost and overwhelmed felt so ungrateful. Imagine if during final exams, everyone in your life was saying, “Finals are here! This is the best your life is ever going to get!” On top of being exhausted and grumpy, you’d feel guilty about your own, very human emotions. (And probably in crisis because Dear god, what if this IS the best life ever gets?!) This is why we talk about our feelings!

Amira’s lips twitch and she shakes her head like she doesn’t know what to do with me. 'Apology accepted,' she says. 'Though I maybe also owe you an apology.' This surprises me, and it must show on my face. Amira adds, 'Don’t look so shocked. I just mean it’s possible you’re not the only one to blame for us not getting along all these years. You pushed me away, and I pushed back by trying to beat you in any class we were in together. Which, honestly, has been really exhausting. You’re very smart. Most of the time anyway. Though your emotional intelligence could use some work.' That shocks a laugh out of me, and Amira grins. 'So, does this mean we’re good now?' I ask. This almost feels too easy. Too good to be true. 'That depends, are we actually friends now?' There’s a small voice inside of me that wants me to ask for more than that, but I’m not willing to open that can of worms yet. I hold out my hand. 'Friends,' I say.

I am Tabitha Abigail Walker, a Black girl in contemporary America, and I am personally and emotionally spent. It’s not even eleven a.m. and I already feel as exhausted as my egg supply.

It’s a strange thing. I’m emotionally compromised, but I’m also so physically exhausted that it’s difficult for me to sort through the hierarchy of needs here.

I’m exhausted from pretending to be happy just to keep the feed looking aesthetically pleasing — and then crying into my pillow at night because my soul has no one left to talk to.