I am tired.

Not sleepy; I get plenty of sleep. Not physically tired, except right after exercise, of course. Not really even stressed and mentally tired, which is what most people I talk to are. Or think they are. I think it’s not really even that.

It seems like everyone I talk to is just plain tired. They would just like to set their burdens down for a little while. A friend said, “I just want to not be responsible.” She was “joking” she quickly claimed after that, with a nervous smile, afraid and not wanting me to see the cracks in her perfect life. But I know truth when I hear it.

I think we are all heart-heavy tired. We’ve gone as long as we can as fast as we can, being as perfect as we can. And we’re doing it all alone. We can’t admit to each other that we need help. We post all the good stuff on the social media. Proof that we are leading wonderful lives. We can’t post the bad stuff without carefully sanitizing and downplaying it. And then (if we dare have a flaw) we have to endure all the cheerful, well meaning advice and prayers and guaranteed cures and simple fixes. It seems ungrateful to not then perk right up.

We can’t confide in a friend that we ache, with a weariness deep down in our bones.

We are exhausted. But we look around, in this fast lane, and everyone else seems to be just zooming by. They all have their own lives, their own stresses. What right have we to slow them down?

We can’t even whisper about how close to the edge we are; it’s too scary. Speaking it aloud might make it too real.

Guess what. It’s real.

This rush rush I’m perfect madness can’t continue forever.

We can’t go on, shut up in our little bubbles of required enthusiasm.

I’ll go first, make it easier for you.

I’m weak, and frail, and exhausted. I’m just a hair’s width on this side of empty. I need your company, and your honesty, and your shared insecurity. I need to feel that you understand. And I need you to need me back, to let me walk in your darkness with you. To let me see that you’re not perfect either. To just sit quietly and hold hands, and be. Not fix each other, not judge or advise. Just be.

Don’t worry, I can handle it. It’s sort of magic that way. Everything we give each other, both good and bad, creates that energy, that Life that we need to keep going, to “fill our tanks back up.”

And thanks. For just letting me say that.