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Elissa Altman's avatar

Thank you for your words. 🙏🏻 I keep feeling that exhaustion is layered like a strudel; we can recognize physical exhaustion, but often less so moral exhaustion, exhaustion borne of ancient and ongoing injustice and intergenerational trauma, exhaustion that has its roots in cruelty, exhaustion that comes from relentless self-blame. I’m writing a book right now on permission, and while its focus is the creative impulse, I keep thinking that the tentacles of permission are so much more far-reaching: permission to rest, permission to listen to one’s body, permission to show up for oneself, permission to say No. There is so much in your words for which I am grateful, as always.

And I will write to Calvin today.

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Dr Mae Sakharov's avatar

"I did not begin to live alone till I was forty-five, and had “lived” in the sense of passionate friendships and love affairs very richly for twenty-five years. I had a huge amount of life to think about and to digest, and, above all, I was a person by then and knew what I wanted of my life. The people we love are built into us. Every day I am suddenly aware of something someone taught me long ago — or just yesterday — of some certainty and self-awareness that grew out of conflict with someone I loved enough to try to encompass, however painful that effort may have been." May Sarton

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