Yes, I’m tired

Why being told about my fatigue is exhausting  

Every Thursday evening, I attend a three-hour community choir rehearsal in which I am the youngest non-paid member by roughly three decades. It’s a warm, welcoming environment with homemade baked goods during the break and charming retired folks who like to sing. Within this contingent of elderly white ladies, at least one of them will always greet me by saying, “You look tired today!” At 6:30 pm on a Thursday, I often am quite tired. Dragging myself through the winter sludge to sit on rocky pews for the better part of my night is not an entirely enjoyable activity, as delicious as the lemon squares are. Moreover, I am not comfortable expressing, in the choir space, my mental health struggles and how they hinder my everyday functioning. So my usual response becomes: “Yes, I had a long day.”  

Yet every day is a long day. I wake up and see the dark circles under my eyes, and I always try and trick myself into thinking it’s just some mascara residue. I put on concealer to make myself look more awake, but its longevity is inevitably cursed because I habitually rub my eyes when I am anxious. On days when I don’t wear makeup, it usually means I need more sleep than I got the night before. Clinical depression tries to trap me in bed, and chronic anxiety reminds me that I have responsibilities that will soon make me exhausted by sunset. It’s a cycle that’s punctuated by moments of levity—seeing people attend and enjoy themselves at events I’ve planned, someone telling me they resonated with something I wrote, or my roommate and I discussing the absurdities of the British royal family’s history over breakfast. I trust that my work is valued, and recognizing positive, active engagement with what I’ve produced is worth some fatigue. 

However, active engagement on my part is not guaranteed because of the host of identities I occupy, many of which do not align with the predominantly white, aged, upper-middle-class population of my community choir. There is not enough energy in my system to try and justify why racist microaggressions drain me more than running does when someone asks why I look tired. Nor does my walking into the rehearsal without a smile justify clipped comments like “You look rushed.” To me, rushed is my preset, along with the many flaws it brings to my every day. But I should not have to excuse my exhaustion. Being tired is an indication of my normal, and it is a trait I am trying to change by taking time to do absolutely nothing, not stepping foot on UofT campus for a day, ignoring my to-do list in favour of baking cookies, and going to therapy where I can actually absorb clinical strategies to help me manage my setbacks. Unfortunately, my schedule makes these moments scarce.  

If I look tired, it’s because I am tired. I am tired of having to pass off my slumped posture as foolish laziness in not wanting to sit up straight on rigid chairs, as just having walked a long distance in heels, as side effects of the bitter weather—despite all these situations having elements of truth to them. We should be allowed to be tired without reason because it is a state of existence, albeit an unideal one. Let us say we don’t want to be here because we’d rather be in bed without having to suffer through a packed streetcar ride to get home. Let me say that singing until 8:45 pm on a Thursday night makes me want to fall asleep on a pew because I have more 12-hour days than not. Let me say that being tired does not make me less of a singer, less of a qualified student, or less of a young person capable of “having fun” with a boisterous laugh that I’ve been told to tone down—a comment I’ve both directly and indirectly heard from those in the community choir. Receiving judgement, however subtle or explicit, from people in a space where I already don’t feel entirely comfortable as one of only a handful of people of colour in the room is stinging. Whether in professional or non-professional spaces, looking or being tired should not be a fault.  

I write this lying in bed at 7:30 pm at the end of a hectic week with my laptop propped on my chest, wearing pajamas. In sustaining myself through public interactions and meetings with high anxiety symptoms constantly riding on my shoulders and depressive episodes threatening my ability to attend 10 am lectures, I cannot bring myself to do much else. Declaring that I’m tired should not be met with condescending suggestions concerning how or why I should rest more, because I already know. I’ve committed myself to a myriad of engagements that give me joy in fulfilling my passions, one of which includes the opportunity to sing choral music every week. I am grateful and exhausted, thrilled and sleepy. Please let me be tired.