relatable
I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.
-Tolkien
There’s a tremendous friction that arises when you don’t allow yourself to do what you really want to do with your life. You make a lot of halfway decisions to negotiate your competing priorities: what you want, and what you want to want.
Dan Shipper • Every’s Master Plan
my sense is that people who take a long time to respond to messages, or tend to go into shame spirals about them, often put a lot of pressure on themselves to respond in a specific way
Fun Pilgrimx.com

That day, I realized I don’t want my friend—or anyone—to apologize for being away from their phone again. I don’t want someone to feel bad if the social load is overwhelming, or if I am currently one long-distance relationship too many. I have other friends who can love me in the interim.
What People Deserve
If you're in that invisible building phase right now—working a job that feels like a stepping stone, living in a place you've outgrown, developing skills in private—know this: You're not behind. You're in training.
Carmen Van Kerckhove • Stop pretending you don’t care
there’s a specific kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much, but from thinking too much while doing very little.