In January of 2021, I realized that I was tired. 

Not the kind of tired that could be remedied by a nap, or a restful weekend, or even a lazy, loungey vacation. It wasn’t a tiredness that could be solved by upping my exercise or drinking more water. Instead, it was a tiredness that came with a call for re-evaluation—I had come to realize that I have been working since I was five years old and that I was, finally, exhausted.

As a January baby, I enter a new year and then a new age. My birthday is often pre-screened by a flurry of anxiety about age, money, and friendship circles shrinking. I start to wonder, “What have I even done all of these years?” And, before my birthday even arrives, an extravagant pity party has been thrown.

It was shortly after my 30th birthday that I felt burn out creeping into my bones. It wiped out any creative juices I was trying to wring out, rendering me restless and desperate for a quick fix. I cried to my partner, to friends, and to mentors about how I hadn’t had the energy to accomplish anything I thought I would have. Between a dramatic retelling of my overwhelming schedule, I would shout “all I wanted these last few years was to write, and all I’ve had the energy to do is stare at my phone!” 

I had told myself that 2021 would be the year that I finally dusted off those half-hearted essays in my Google docs. I had big plans to try my hand at screenwriting. Instead,I spent a lot of evenings under my weighted blanket with one claw clutching my phone as I scrolled TikTok.

I continued to brush away my nightly iPhone reminder for “journaling time,” and promised myself that tomorrow would be my day . 

Tomorrow, I will write.
Tomorrow, I will work late.
Tomorrow, I will do an evening pilates class on YouTube and then break open the screenwriting software I bought three years ago and maybe start that short film. Tomorrow, when I am not so tired, when I can focus, I will write.

Like all of us during the grip of the pandemic, I went through a highway of emotions — often moving through them so fast, my own mania made me car sick. Fueled by fear, I sped so quickly that I failed to fully marvel at the big moments: buying my first home, growing my business, getting my first rescue dog. And everytime I sat down with the half-hearted intention to write, I was met with stage fright. My fingers began to sputter at the keys, and for many months, not a drop came out. 

The words came to me at night, in the narrow corridor of half-sleep, but quickly fell out of my ears and into the ether of lost essays. The moment I woke, I would attempt to record what I thought was surely brilliant but everything had long been lost. 

My relationship to work—to working, to earning money, to producing a product that wasn’t always words on paper, but often a lot of everything else—had taken the driver’s seat. My focus began to shift from why I was working so much and so hard, and took a clumsy tumble into the dizzying hamster wheel of The Grind.

Friends and acquaintances around me began quitting their jobs, rightfully citing exhaustion, burnout, and the need to seek out more fulfilling work. I congratulated them on their bold moves, wished them rest and rejuvenation, and wondered how the hell they could afford it. 

You see, I’ve been a working girl since babyhood. And if there’s one thing that’s been reinforced into my psyche since my diaper-wearing days, it’s that come hell or high water, I’ll find a way to earn a paycheck. And, despite a lifetime in the workforce and the immense privileges that came with it, a paycheck is always, always, needed. I have no memory of a life where I wasn’t earning, providing, and proving something to somebody. I have been for sale for as long as I can remember and, at 32, I often wonder what it will feel like when I finally decide to close up shop. 

I started acting as a toddler. After a few commercials and small roles, my career ultimately began at the age of five when I was cast on Fox’s Millennium; a sister show to The X-Files. When Millennium ended three years later, our family packed up and went to LA for pilot season while my name still had a chance. I went to auditions in stucco buildings where the casting directors didn’t know me and I felt small and lonely. I met with Haley Joel Osment’s team, and they gushed over my firm eight-year-old handshake.

We didn’t last long in LA. The moment I told my parents I longed for home we packed up our mini van and booked it back—but more on that in another essay.

Adults (specifically directors, producers, casting agents, and dance instructors) at this time in my life loved to make prophecies for my future — it felt as if everyone knew where I was headed and I was mystified by their firm sense of direction. I was going places. 

This promise watered a lot of my childhood, preparing me for growth and greatness and an inevitable complex. As a highly-trained, constantly busy actor and dancer  I always wondered where exactly I was supposed to go. And when would I get to decide where that was?

But I never learned how and so I kept going, even when my life went under water, and every breath felt shallow. Ever the performer, I persisted. On film sets, on stages, in piano concerts, and now in corporate Zoom calls: I could and can perform my way through anything. Exhaustion had met its match when it crept into my bones—the show had been going for over 25 years, and the curtain had no intention of closing. 

I spent my childhood and teenage years working hard at everything extra curricular that was thrown my way. It was often incredibly thankless and sometimes a bit dumb. As I slipped out of precocious young Brittany and into awkward teenage Brittany, it felt as if the edges of my Gold Star had started to fray. As I grew up, I spent my big valiant efforts and aspirations as a performer in the wings, waiting for my turn again. I filled my decked-out day planners with hours of classes, rehearsals, auditions, and competitions. Waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the fax machine to fire up with a script, waiting for the letter. Waiting, waiting, and working. 

My work ethic followed me to entrepreneurship.

I started my business when the #GirlBoss era was at its peak: a time in our culture where women starting businesses banded together to form a mega-alliance, separating themselves from the Boy’s Club with the sheer force of Pussy Power and psychedelic typefaces. Flexing their skills, their determination, and their wits, patriarchy be damned. 

I sunk my teeth into this movement, predictably so. Ignoring, as most of us did, that an insatiable hunger for work and success above all, is just another white-centred, patriarchal, capitalist trap. There was an embarrassing time in my life where I dreamt of joining the ranks of boss women on the covers of Forbes. CEOs wearing cream pantsuits, looking smoldering and draconian in all their shiny, blunt bob glory. I wanted Brittany the Child Actor, Brittany the Dancer, Brittany the Journalist, Brittany the Small Business Owner, to be met with the accolades I chased and was promised my whole life. I wanted it to mean something, for the fear of being forgotten to melt away even just for a moment. I wanted to feel that I was in the place everyone said I would land. And I wanted it in print, damnit. 

Eventually, as trends go, hustle culture began to hold a sour connotation. As we all turned our heads on the #GirlBoss era, and became wise to the scam that is Targeted Marketing for Tired Cis-Women, the entrepreneurs in my community began to rebrand themselves as agents of R&R. They proudly prioritized cycle-syncing, rest, and inaccessible fitness classes over the drone of thankless work. The Instagram landscape shifted, too. Posts from my peers that once aggressively celebrated accolades, long days, and big business moves now featured gentle yoga poses, no makeup selfies, and walks in the woods. But I realized I didn’t fit into this manicured conversation either. I didn’t want my reckoning and hard work to be glossed over by a whole other movement only accessible to the independently wealthy. 

My life has been in perpetual-validation-seeking motion since toddlerhood and what I really wanted was to just take a breath.

It’s been two years since I began obsessing over my relationship to work, and I am still navigating what I assume will always be a push-and-pull toxic relationship. The writing comes, and then it goes. Inspiration strikes, and then flickers. Business opportunities come in droves, and then panic settles in as soon as the bank account starts to deplete. The pendulum swings between extreme hustle, and quiet exhaustion, and I’ve started to cling to the motion with a gentle understanding that life in the creative fast lane may always be a trip.

Attempting to free myself from expectation while still striving, still working and still reaching, has been exhausting and confusing and, at some points, incredibly lonely. The adhesive of my desire for mega-success has worn out—became ply, full of dust, and eventually lost its stick. I am erasing the narrative that others wrote for me over and over again, and reimagining what success can look like in this life with health, happiness, and a lust for possibility in tow. 

I have yet to solve my tired. The re-evaluation is an ongoing investigation. It’s January 2023 now and I’m still lamenting about how hard it is to balance ambition, personal needs, creative dreams, and childhood trauma. But the clarity is there, and all I need to do is the big, terrifying lift of clearing the space.  

The gift I hope to unwrap this decade is stillness.

To know that I don’t have to go anywhere, I’m already here.