I’m tired of being a strong, independent, Black woman. Someone save me.

I am not a fucking superhero and that’s okay

I am tired. No, I am more than tired. 

I am exhausted. 

I’m exhausted with everything I need to do at work. Everything I need to get done in my business. Everything I need to get done in my personal life. It’s exhausting and I collapse when I think about everything I need to do. I become avoidant with my tasks, do whatever I can to turn my brain off, and become overwhelmed with all of the pressure.

I’ve been living in burnout for years and am scared to see how long this will be something I deal with. I pray for someone to save me like the damsel in distress I feel like…but no one is coming. EYE have to be the knight in shining armor and when the going gets tough and I remember this, I burst into tears. 

I’ve cried 4 times this week because of how overwhelmed I am with everything going on in my life. It’s only Thursday when I’m writing this. I can’t do this anymore. Physically, I can but mentally and emotionally, I’m trying to disassociate before I lose my mind. 

I’ve become too important at work and it makes me sick to my stomach. Why the fuck do I have to be so good at my job? I’ve been running this department for months, wearing so many hats and functioning as a team of “we” when it’s just “me”. I’m tired of this shit! I need help!

No amount of praise, compliments, or thank yous can save me from my Sunday scaries.

I’ve been in my role for a year and a half, literally the longest amount of time I’ve been in a full-time role, and it was only 11 months in which I began developing Sunday scaries. As someone working in the recruiting industry and creating content to help others find early career roles, it’s hard out here. The job market is getting worse every year but there are also so many new opportunities popping up for early-career folks. It’s crazy, I feel like I’m being gaslit when it comes to job-hunting.

I’m in a unique position where I’m practically Hannah Montana and the work that I’ve been doing with my early career resources blog has opened so many doors for me in my career. Every day, I thank God for the places he’s taking me and my business, but full-time entrepreneurship is not for me so I still have to work a 9-5.

I was crying about my lack of work-life balance and enjoyment on my finsta and one of my mutuals made a really good point about how corporate America loves to hire top performers and push them to the point of burnout. Especially Black women.

Everyone always relies on Black women to save the day and it’s exhausting. I’m so fucking tired of being surrounded by people who get to slack off and I don’t. I’m tired of working twice as hard to be just as good. I’m so tired of having to use all my brain energy to where at the end of the day, I can barely think. I wish I could fuck off and be a useless team member but I can’t. I have to push through and do everything by myself at work, do everything in my business, and then have to cook dinner? clean the kitchen? tidy up my apartment? maintain a social life? end a long stressful day by crawling alone into a cold, messy bed? like what the actual fuck.

This is the sad side of being a single, independent, Black woman in America. I don’t think the things I want and need to make it through my days are unreasonable but it seems like I have to fucking work myself to the bone for someone to understand and I refuse. One of my favorite things about being Gen Z is that we are not afraid to walk away when it gets too hard. I value my piece of mind and sanity. I value not having fucking anxiety attacks at work over dumb shit.

But, I’m also an expensive bitch who likes to live a lavish lifestyle and I’m not willing to compromise there. So I push through and just cry about it. I smoke my weed, bitch on my blog, be a boss-ass influencer, and just continue to pray to God that things improve.

I often think about Sza’s lyrics from Normal Girl

“This time next year, I’ll be livin’ so good; won’t remember no pain, I swear”

I hold onto this lyric every year. I’m holding onto it right now.

Godspeed to the overworked, overwhelmed, over-capacity, hyper-independent-because-she-can’t-rely-on-anyone Black girls out there. I see you. I am you. I’m wishing better for us.