Everyone has bad days, personally, professionally, because of strangers, or lovers, or partners, or friends. We all have our ebbs and flows, we have the days where you’re flying and the days where you’re drowning, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. This isn’t another post about the bad days, and how I know things are going to get better, because if this was a post about the bad days I would already know that. This is a post that simply has one message: I surrender.

The chaotic monotony of life has been building me up and breaking me down lately, and walking out of the office 2 hours after I’d first packed up to leave last night was the icing on a really fucked cake. I’m exhausted. Stressful weeks mean I’m abusing the chocolate drawer, and all that sugar in my system has aggravated the anxiety that hasn’t flared up since before I did the Whole30 in April. All I wanted was to get to a yoga class, and once again that was taken from me; all I wanted was to get to my mat at home but I couldn’t even have that to look forward to, because I had to stop at my lovely friend M’s to pick up my dress for R’s wedding, and then I had to feed myself, and I needed to clean, and shower, somewhere in there I suppose I’ll have to sleep before going back into work forever; and everywhere in there I’m still covered in poison ivy, which has a real way of making you feel life a fucking rockstar. When my head hit the pillow last night, I let the tears frame the sides of my face as they streamed down, down, and found a new mantra to guide me to a restless sleep: deep inhale, deep exhale: I surrender.

I surrender. I’ve been so fortunate for the past few weeks that things have been fantastically wonderful in my life, with positive thinking and attitudes, but something snapped in me this week and I don’t have it in me to fight anymore. Last night when I got to M and N’s place, I started talking about my day, as they are the most amazing listeners and let me complain whenever I need to, and about two minutes into my frustrated lamentations, M walked over to me from where she was sitting on the couch and without missing a beat pulled me into a hug. The second my head hit her shoulder in a grateful release from the tense nature of feeling overwhelmed at life, I started to cry, the first time that night that I felt like I couldn’t push through. It was just a few minutes where she let me cry on her shoulder, shoulders shaking with the tiny sobs of someone who doesn’t have it in her to fight any longer, and the rest of the night before my head hit the pillow, I was trying to figure out where my fight went, and why I surrender felt so good to repeat over and over, before falling into a dreamless sleep.

I’m a fighter by nature. I fight back bad moods, I fight back at stress, I push through the bad days and I don’t let people walk over me; it took me years to find my voice and I will be damned if anyone tries to mute it again. I make mistakes because I’m human, but I fight to grow from those mistakes instead of letting them define me. But I’m waving the white flag on this week. I can’t fight anymore. Last night I felt defeated, like I’d run a race as the leader until the last three steps, where I fell and watched everyone else sprint past. I was supposed to have a Summer Friday today but I’ll likely be here late, pushing to get things done on time, even though it won’t matter, and next week everything will still be crazy. Monotony, circles, running around like my job matters in the largest grand scheme of things, like the world might stop turning unless I get that email out in the next five minutes.

This morning I woke up early and sighed, deeply, the kind of sigh that speaks to a long week and the optimism that ran out by Wednesday. I stared at my yoga mat and heard the little voice in the back of my head saying that it would be okay to surrender back to sleep and stretch tomorrow. But I didn’t. Instead I worked through a really easy, basic flow, whatever came to mind, while keeping I surrender top-of-mind. And it started to take a new meaning. I surrender to the bad days and the bad moods. I surrender to being crazy at work. I surrender to the limitations of being human – maybe I’m cranky and upset today, but by the time tomorrow comes around, it’s a new day, with new challenges, and eventually it’s going to be okay. So this is my white flag to this week, where I’m going to let everything just happen now, and I’m going to try my best to trust that things will work out the way they need to. I surrender to the weekend and to what I hope will be a learning experience, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the fighter comes back next week.