If you don’t listen to your body, it will find a way to make itself heard, like an old fax machine churning out a message you can’t ignore. Ignoring the early whispers of fatigue is like ignoring the warning light on your car’s dashboard – eventually, something will break. Last autumn, my chronic tiredness forced me to seek help from my GP. Despite a barrage of blood tests and specialist consultations, everything appeared normal. Yet, as the months rolled on, my energy remained at iPhone levels. This means low, very low.

My job, although it fills my bank account, leaves my soul feeling bankrupt. Each day, I trade hours of my life for a paycheck. I go to work to perform totally inconsequential tasks that bring nothing to my life. Well, technically, it does bring me money, but somehow, it feels not worth it.

If I am not working, I am writing, if I am not writing, I am researching, if I am not researching, I am applying for jobs, and if I am not looking for jobs I am sleeping.

On top of all that, I try to eat healthy (unsuccessfully), I try to exercise (unsuccessfully), and I try to have a social life (somewhat successfully). Even when I have leisure moments, they are few, far apart and timed. And just because I am a masochist, I decided to have a sober summer this year. Why not.

I feel like we have a very linear and immediate expectation of how we want things to happen. In life, there is effort and sacrifice, and usually, things that matter take time. Having the health you want takes time, having the relationships you want takes time.

Changing careers in a fucked-up economy takes time.

Yesterday, my body simply refused to continue. It was as if a great machine had ground to a halt, gears clogged and unable to turn. I had to call in sick, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, and I won’t investigate further. I also won’t share the horrible symptoms of my tiredness.

I felt guilty about it. Layers of structural oppression.

I felt guilty because even if I am hyper-aware of our economic system and how conditioned I am to feel responsible for my day job, I still feel guilty when I call in sick. How messed up is that?

The day after, I went to work. And I got tired. Physically and mentally. Exhausted. Emotionally drained of things that (in my humble opinion) really make my life much more mediocre. The week went by, and I did everything BUT WRITE. This guilt, layered like sediment in a riverbed, added to my physical and mental fatigue. Returning to work felt like wading through a swamp, each step more exhausting than the last.

I needed to stop. Maybe we just need to stop sometimes. Like advocating for napping and stopping it has become almost a cliché now. In a Gwyneth Paltrow kind of way. But how am I going to take time to reflect and post self – help shit on social media, when stories must be told.

Today, I went to work, without knowing the outcome of the 2024 Euros, but knowing that Trump was shot. Obviously, I was told that Spain won. Great, lovely. I couldn’t care less. Today at work, I had a couple of silly jokes in rotation:

1. I didn’t care that Spain won (I am indeed a homosexual) but I am sad that England lost, and therefore we have been robbed of a bank holiday. Allegedly. Like the economy is broken BUT let me dream. If I was feeling spicy, I would add the possibility of the King dying to get said bank holiday.
2. Spain won and the two players who scored turned out to be Basque. One is from Navarre, but whatever, being Basque is a liquid concept to me. This is extremely interesting to me since the Spanish right wing hates us, and they claim that we always want to break their country and other nonsense, and yet here we are, winning this silly ball game for them.

I have been yapping all day (one can never talk enough), rotating these two jokes, mixing and matching, and intertwining them indistinctively with the fact that I went to see Kylie in Hyde Park on Saturday and how much I hate the patriarchy.

ANYWAY.

I was in my seventh hour of dealing with a bad day. Three people are on holiday, and one is sick, but doing pretty good. Like there is this very human thing of feeling good when you perform well under pressure. I was chatting with one of my lovely customers, just going into full absurdity about how Trump’s shooter is Ivanka and how Melania is just pissed off on her way to Pilates, texting Ivanka Tik Toks of people failing the target like storm troopers, for example. A straight man walks by and overhears the conversation. I know this because he stopped and tuned around. Afterwards, this ensues:

‘You sound Spanish, are you Spanish?’

‘Yes’, I interrupt the foolishness with my lovely lady. ‘I am’.

‘Ugh’, he goes, ‘That’s the last thing I need today’.

I thought about rolling my eyes. I thought about clapping back (of course), but I didn’t. I don’t know why, but I didn’t do anything. I was not even frozen; I was just witnessing the scene unfold in front of me. The lady said something, but I was gone. Physically gone. I walked out.

I walked out because my little brain could not understand that in 2024, I am being targeted as a victim for a post football match micro aggression. With racist and homophobic garnish.

Not that it bothers me, I found it kind of funny. I find it kind of funny that this man represents everything I despise in society.

The men who go back home after their team loses the march and perpetrate violence against their loved ones.

The men who get mad when their team is integrated by a diverse cast of human beings.

The men who do not understand that the world is changing.

The men who fail to see that their time is coming to an end.

The men that destroy cities. Sometimes when their team loses. Other times when their teams win.

The men that stage shootings.

The men that shoot.

The men that get mad when we tell stories.

The men that get mad when we tell stories about monarchies falling.

The men that get mad when we tell stories in languages they cannot understand.

The men that refuse to comprehend that stories will be told.