Is what I say when people ask me how I’m doing. Well enough.

Well enough, given how the past months left me reeling and so deeply tired, and given the grief at the loss of my longtime business partner and friend, three weeks ago today.
Well enough, in the sense that I am now slowly catching my breath and am working to start my own recovery from burnout.
Well enough, in the sense that, thanks to my colleagues, I am able to drop all of my company internal work until February, keeping only the client work that gives me energy, although it will be some weeks before all that is fully transferred.
Well enough, in the sense that I will and can have more time off in my weeks, although I find it hard to let go, to just be still for a bit, and harder still to not in a reflex fill the newly freed up time with new things. Fleeing forward being my go-to coping tactic throughout my life.
Well enough, in the sense that I look forward to being able to travel a bit in the coming months, a lost old habit I miss.
Well enough, in the sense that I want to find my way back to spending more time with our 9 year old, and refind my balance with E. Both of them had to bear a chunk of the load of my diminished mental health and stress in the past two years or so, while having little agency other than to tough it out too. I shudder at the realisation that two years is about 20% of Y’s life until now, and what that means on how she later will look back at her youth and who I was for her during it.
Well enough, in the sense that I want to reconnect to old friends and have a social life that is more like it was before the pandemic.
Well enough, that I’m eager to work on the three things I identified a year ago to better fit my work and life with the way my mind works. Putting my vision and perceptiveness as source of creativity central, putting exploration first for that, next to rekindling existing and deepening new ties with professional peers for inspiration and feedback. This includes learning to see my (mostly much younger) colleagues as proper professional peers, as opposed to one-dimensionally as team members I feel strongly responsible for and have a duty of care towards.
Well enough, to look forward to go through the many books I have lined up for reading, to look forward to learning, and not just surviving.
Well enough to want all that, although I struggle with accepting that I’m too tired still to really be able to do something about it.

Well enough.

But not well.