It’s been about three months since I returned to work after maternity leave during Golden Week in May.
Only three months?
It honestly feels like it went by in the blink of an eye.
But at the same time, those three months have been so intense that it feels like I’ve lived an entire year.
And right now, my face and body are… pretty worn out.
I don’t feel like I’ve been pushing myself that hard, but apparently, the dark circles under my eyes are pretty bad.
I didn’t even notice them myself.
A few days ago, I went back to strength training for the first time in a while, and my trainer immediately said,
“Your dark circles are really bad! Are you sleeping?!”
I looked in the mirror and thought, “Are they really that bad?”
Apparently, they were worse than when I saw my trainer about two weeks earlier.
I guess I’ve gotten so used to looking at my own face that I don’t even notice how tired I look anymore. 😂
My trainer also told me, “Don’t push yourself too hard with your workouts, either.”
But honestly, I was happy that I was finally able to exercise, because I hadn’t even been able to work out properly lately.
And then there’s the mental exhaustion.
The main reason for that is probably one of my coworkers.
She’s technically my coworker, but she’s also a highly capable, ambitious woman who has been working in this industry for more than ten years.
She knows so much.
And she teaches me a lot.
Sometimes she says,
“I’ve told you this before, you know?”
while explaining it to me again.
I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve heard that sentence.
And I’ve said these words countless times, too:
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I don’t know.”
She must think that everything she tells me goes in one ear and out the other.
But the strange thing is… I genuinely don’t remember being taught some of these things.
And even when I do remember, I just can’t seem to retain everything.
In other words, my brain is at capacity.
I just can’t keep up with my work.
And honestly, I’ve felt really disappointed in myself.
“What is this? Is this what they call ‘mom brain’?”
I started wondering if that was what was happening to me.
And then something changed.
Whenever this coworker pointed out something I had done wrong, I gradually started blaming myself for everything.
“It’s my fault.”
“I’m the one who can’t do things properly.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
I started thinking like that all the time.
It was only after talking to my husband, some friends, and people from other departments that I began to realize:
Maybe something is wrong with the way I’m thinking about myself.
I was blaming myself way too much.
Who is at fault and what the real cause is… I’ll put that aside for now. 😂
The problem was that even after I got home, put my baby to bed, and finally had some time for myself, I would find myself thinking about work.
How am I going to manage my workload from here?
Why can’t I get my work done?
Although, to be honest, I’ve even started to lose track of what “being bad at my job” actually means.
I think I had become so overwhelmed that I was judging myself without even knowing what standard I was using.
A lot has happened over the past few months.
I’d like to write about some of those experiences in more detail in another post someday.
For now, things have calmed down a little.
But my dark circles are still here. 😂
At least, I think I’ve stopped blaming myself as much as I used to.
And I’ve learned one very important thing:
Sleep matters.
I need to go to bed earlier.
Lack of sleep is the enemy of both physical and mental health — and probably beauty, too.
So lately, I’ve set myself a new goal:
Go to bed sometime in the 10 p.m. hour, while still making time to update this blog.
It feels good to finally update my blog after such a long break!
I’m really glad I managed to write something again.
See you in my next post! 🙂
コメント