For a long time, one of my bylines (in addition to small hard details like rock candy) was, “Be prolific, not perfect.”

I gravitated towards the desire to be prolific and not perfect because my perfectionism was not doing me any favors with my writing.

I have since come to accept the desire to be prolific is/was also not doing me any favors.

I have fatigue from chronic insomnia all day every day. There are multiple things I’m told to prioritize by well meaning people in my life: my diet, my health, my movement, my living space, and more, but the reality is, I’m one person who frequently can’t make it throughout the day.

I don’t know if you struggle with fatigue. If you aren’t, imagine that you are as tired as when you went to bed, and that feeling never fades. It doesn’t matter how much coffee you drink. It doesn’t matter if you drag yourself out for a walk. You are so tired, you call fall asleep.

Then insomnia is being that tired, making it through until bed time, and either being unable to fall asleep or stay asleep.

So, if you are also lucky not to be cursed with insomnia, that hour or so you experience before bed, is my every day life with no reprieve.

Because on the few days I do get a good night’s sleep, my body just wants more of it.

I’ve decided, for so long, that I’m going to just power through, that I haven’t learned to accept that I am going to be tired all the time. And that reality comes with deciding what gets sacrificed. The day job, the main battery hog, can’t get sacrificed. At the end of the day, I’ll need to decide between chores, between eating, between derby/movement, and yes, between writing. And writing won’t always win out, and that’s okay. I greatly admire people who can seemingly write without flagging even with their day jobs, but I’m not one of those people, and I need to stop trying to bed.

I don’t know what my new byline will be. Maybe I don’t need one.