You can absolutely love what you do and still be fucking tired.

Compared to a lot of folks, I’m lucky. I have a wonderful wife. I live in a decent town, and between the two of us we manage to make enough to live comfortably working in fields we love and trained for.

I’m going to go ahead and toot my own horn a bit here (my therapist said I need to improve my self-talk) and share that I am objectively very good at my job. The work of being a pastry chef, running and training a small team, and developing recipes is not an unmanageable burden for me. My team and I deliver excellent work for our employers and our customers.

Just because someone carries a burden well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy, and even people who perform well at work they enjoy feel the need to put down their tools, scream into the void for a bit, and then take a nap.

We made it though. We pulled it off and delivered the experience our customers wanted and needed. My little team and I produced and orchestrated platters and platters of Bitter Chocolate and Passionfruit Curd tartlets, Flourless Chocolate Layer Cake, and way too many little shot glasses of coconut panna cotta topped with fresh grapes and housemade marionberry jam (because some folks really want coconut milk jello at 11am…)

This past week at the winery was one of the busiest weeks of the year. We apparently topped $90K in revenue and fed over 660 people in only two days in a kitchen that was not meant to carry that load. Everyone was run ragged, and communication gaps created even more stress.

Now, though? Now I am putting it all down and taking a breath. To celebrate the end of the week, I wandered around Mount Tabor to Montavilla where I ordered some Chinese noodle soup, got a beer named after Bilbo Baggins, pulled out a book, and took a breath that I felt like I’d been holding for two weeks straight.

I had intended to do a little writing too. I very much want to make my goal of a finished first draft on the mentorship book by the end of the year, but as soon as I sat down and sipped that beer last night, the entire weight of the last two weeks landed right on my shoulders.

Tapped Out. Done. Spent. Blown Out. Farblundjet. Oysgematert. The only things I was fit to make at the moment were mistakes and messes, and I didn’t want to clean up after any of them.

“There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest (inspiration) does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.”

― Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

“Inspiration” wasn’t the issue here, pal. The spirit was willing, but the mind and body were cashing their checks.

You can always do what “refuels” you- whether that’s exercise, prayer, seeing friends, enjoying works that inspire or comfort you, meditation… whatever. NONE OF THAT changes or is “cheapened” by the fact that you need downtime.

So I accepted it. I packed up my keyboard, went home, and did all the stuff that just lets me rest and shut my brain off for a while.

I napped with the cat. I watched silly YouTube videos I’d already seen, and replayed video games that I’d already beaten many times over. Then I fixed myself a Negroni, listened to jazz until I was ready to pass out, then went to bed.

Today I woke up after sleeping in long and late, got myself cleaned up, and decided I had the energy reserves to get a PREC and see some friends- provided I got this blog post done before I went home. It’ll be hot later, so that’ll be perfect timing to get what chores I need to do done around the house.

We all need to breathe.
We can make and say and do anything with our time, but we can’t do it all OR all the time.
We don’t exhale without inhaling.

Take a deep breath. Rest. Sleep. Be a potato.
Then go ahead and get back to it.

Stay Classy,