It's dark out already. I'm I'm walking back to my hotel from the convention center after a long day of work, it's super humid. I take my bag off my shoulder because the weight is a pain. I feel a stretch in my neck as I start swinging my bag in my hand. We're talking about work-life. I explain that I don't have much to complain about after a long list of accomplishments I've gathered throughout the year. I likened it to this idea that I had of myself when I first started my job. I'd credit every chance I got to do an excellent job as just wind to the sails of my sailboat. The accomplishments and recognition would be the waves that I would ride until I would inevitably hit a lull. There's a crescent moon out, and I think of how scenic the sky looks, just like it would if I were in the middle of the ocean. Despite any extra paddling I have to do, I feel happiness and joy thinking about my progress over the past year. I mention that I feel like no one else knows how far I've come and that it almost seems like anyone else has seen me despite my efforts. I note that I can't complain because I had the waves. I lag as I look up, my peer is quick to respond, "don't say that." And we talk about life at their company. I feel a tinge of perspective coming on, but I swallow it down while breathing in the hot Florida air and hoping for a breeze.

I believe that in knowing your strengths and being brave, you may find yourself taking risks and committing to tasks you believe in more readily. I was doing this for some time throughout the summer, thinking maybe I could gain more air if I pushed myself to grow outside of myself even if this meant putting in extra hours to work on the most critical tasks and projects. I submitted a few conference abstracts, signed up to do much more than I needed, and I pushed on all my deliverables right up until the date for a significant event where we would be presenting our team's work. Sure enough, I did not have the energy to be present at the moment. I felt glad that I had something tangible completed, but I wasn't there to enjoy the event, and I found myself feeling used up at every "great work!" that came my way. I had worked past my stress without ever acknowledging it, and I felt ashamed. What did I do to myself?

I participated in the week's worth of activities, retreating to my hotel room every night exhausted and wanting nothing else to do except lay or go back home to Maryland. On the last day of the week, I was ending a conversation with someone when I stopped myself short of the end, quietly sank into my neck, and called myself a loser. I felt like one. I repeated it when I felt the weight of my own words, and I was saying, "I'm such a loser." "I feel like a loser." Loud enough to be heard. I felt ashamed because I felt trapped and stuck in my rut. I had been trying to own my rejections, failures, stress, forgotten. I was doing this for months.

Some days you know those emotions aren't for you to hold onto for you to keep bottled up. Some days you don't, you refuse to disengage and let go.

I didn't want to be the person who's not "good enough" to speak at an event, someone who is falling short on their goals. I chalk it up to not being able to make an impact. But this is like running till your lungs hurt, chasing down the closest thing to you. Maybe once you've caught up, it'll mean nothing to you, or you'll keep chasing down the next thing.

Sometimes I don't know how else to reach my own goals than to keep chasing what's immediately in front of me. I clutch my skills and strength and play to them like a tempo. My legs are the hands that sign myself up for the next challenge. It takes time and perspective to do it any better than that. For the rest of this year, though, I'm hoping not to kill myself blindly chasing. But that's not to say I won't run.