The river was always there.
I just didn’t see the dam I’d built across it.

When your identity is built around one thing,
it only takes one crack
for the whole structure to wobble.

I didn’t give up achievement.
I changed what it meant.
And my whole life began to feel different.

My body wasn’t broken.
It was trying to tell me the truth.
I just didn’t know how to listen yet.

From the outside, it looked like a dream life.
From the inside, I felt strangely absent.
This is the kind of burnout no one really talks about.