On Endings

Two weeks ago, the most important project of my life ended.
It was a writing project, I am not going to say exactly what, it does not matter. Big Projects tend to have the same effect to everyone who was committed, and invested energy, time and headspace to them for a long period of time. I don’t want to connect my story to my Project. I want to see if anyone will relate to any of the thoughts below. Treat this like a weird, public diary.

It ended exactly 2183 days after I started it. I have been working towards it for the last 14 years of my life. That is almost half of my life. I dreamed of the final moment, I anticipated it with great excitement.

Which makes my current circumstance incredibly confusing: not only am I not feeling any sense of achievement, completion or closure, but I am experiencing something that I could describe as a mild depression. Mild, because I dare not say out loud that it might be moderate, and getting worse day by day. I find myself asking, why? What is wrong with me?

Perhaps it is because I expected things to end with a bang. Perhaps it is because I saw no fireworks, there was no band playing triumphantly and the world did not stop turning.

As years went by and all I did was writing, other people were moving on with their lives, doing whatever they wanted to do. It does not matter if I wanted to do the same things (most of the time I didn’t). They were taking steps forward, in whatever it was they were doing. I envied each and every one of them, and hated myself because my Project was taking too long, so long that many times I thought I may never make it. Everyone else must be better than me, and no doubt they would be doing glorious things with their lives very, very soon. Worse, I was afraid that even if I do manage to finish my Project, it would be terrible. Just bad. But at the same time, I was dreaming of the ending day, when I would hold a print-out of the entire thing. I was dreaming of how I would let it go. Release it. I expected it to be much more dramatic than it was.

In reality, the dominant feeling when I finished was disbelief. Did I really finish it? Is it ready to go? Is it done, polished, is it the best I can do? No, it is not, it will never be, but is it good enough? I guess so. Am I forgetting something? Let’s check again. Did I do that thing that I intended to do? Let’s check again. After I checked everything again, and then again, I decided that this was probably it. But still I was not feeling ready, I was surprised, confused, terrified and stressed beyond belief after weeks of consistent, relentless work.

Add to this that a pandemic happened while I was writing the final bits. There was no printing. I attached a huge Word file to an email and forwarded it to someone. My partner was standing behind me as I was attaching the files and spend fifteen minutes checking compulsively that I attached the right ones, and then I hit ‘Send’ and that was it. Talk about anticlimatic. If I was hoping some sort of celebration, social distancing and quarantine rules had a different idea. No parties, not when gathering with your mates in a pub translates into a health hazard.

The burst of energy that followed the submission was forced and remarkably short-lived. The same night I realised I was missing my Project. Life was weird without it. I am not used to not working on it. It’s what I’ve been doing non-stop for a very long time, and finishing it left a void both in my schedule and in my heart.

Since then, I have been feeling that finishing made no difference in any way whatsoever. My loved ones congratulated me and I know they are proud of me, but somehow I cannot feel any sense of achievement. I try to remind people that I am not done yet, there is still plenty of ways things can go wrong. They don’t seem to listen, and I feel more and more stressed when they don’t. Of course they are not listening! Everyone is asking me how I feel, and everyone assumes I am relieved, but frankly I am just confused.

Everyone also seems to think that I must be looking forward to catching up with life, with everything that I missed while work consumed all my time and headspace. My to-read list is waiting for me, my to-watch list is (thankfully) a bit shorter, there are people I missed and activities I look forward to return to. But, I have exactly zero energy for activities and zero interest in reading. My attention span is non-existent, so films and series are also out of the question. Socialising sounds exhausting, and I am only using the pandemic as an excuse this time. I simply cannot bring myself to move for anything more demanding than going to my computer and going to the supermarket. But surely I must be eager to crack on, see what my future will look like? Again, right now, I can’t find the energy to do anything. Thankfully, I have some flexibility with my time, although I suspect it will not be enough.

Sounds like I need a holiday, right? I was expecting for my world to change when I finished, and I did not even change my immediate surroundings. Well. I just had to go and finish this during a pandemic. Under the global circumstances, even if I take a break, I will have to stay home. The rest of the options are either impossible, or dangerously irresponsible. I said earlier that I do not feel particularly social, but at the same time I have been in house confinement since March. Cabin fever is taking a toll. I have no spoons for parties, but I do need a change of scenery. The prospect of a solo holiday, even a very short one, sounds amazing. It is, frankly, exactly what I need: a nice quiet location, a cozy place to stay, time with myself and my notebook. But right now, it is not feasible.

And another thing: I have been working full-time throughout the six years of my Project. My job served the purpose of supporting me financially, since I am not getting paid for my writing. Working also kept me away from debt, but did not otherwise contribute in my development. For years I felt guilty for splitting my time and attention, for allowing my job to distract me, for not dedicating myself completely to what I felt was my true calling: my Project. So, imagine my surprise when a few days ago, I finished it and all I was left with was…the job. At least I was not furloughed. Weirdly, I had an opportunity to choose my assignments at work. I asked to rationalise and update our digital document library. After having written, formatted and edited 600 pages of text, this sounded both easy and familiar.

It is normal, I read, for some people to identify with their Projects so much that it becomes their identity. We should not let it define us, but it is not that easy. All my energy and headspace was dedicated to this one, great endeavour. It monopolised my discussions, it took over my free time (when it existed), it defined me for a long time. Some people think that by taking up hobbies, one can mitigate that. It was not the case with me: I learned a new music instrument, I joined two different dance classes, I took up apprenticeships, I organised and participated in performances, I joined amateur theatre and improv groups. I did all the things, and my Project was still dominating my identity…until I finished it, and suddenly it was gone.

Perhaps I can be defined by these other projects now? Not so easy. Many of my other activities are not running because of the pandemic, and it feels that there is no life to go back into. Some things are feasible from home, but a slight case of cabin fever is not doing miracles for motivation. Plus, some of my favourite hobbies require a level of emotional commitment that I cannot manage right now. I feel drained, as if I poured the last ounces of my physical and emotional energy in the last days of writing, and now I am out of mana. I can’t tune into music in the physical manner that dancing requires. I can’t manage the emotional investment of playing or making music, either. Apparently, I can manage writing, since I am already on page three of this weird diary-like post.

I feel like I am experiencing a burnout that was long overdue, and it is coming slowly, progressively. Like it is stepping in a bit more every day. Like a delayed-blast reaction to prolonged stress exposure. A quick search on Google yielded some results about the endings of important projects, and how they are very similar to Post-Partum Depression.

I hope it will get better. I will write again.