Burnout, Shmurnout

So, alas.  I am yet again entirely average. I have hit some kind of mid-career burnout, and am working on addressing it.  Which is more work, and too much work was the cause of this to begin with. Talk about conundrum!

Swamps of Sadness, from that glorious
childhood movie Never Ending Story

This isn't the excruciating moments of parenting with small children where one wonders how to get from one second to the next, or the piercing reality that "I chose this" of some hard job or something.  This is the relentless march of putting other things ahead of the truly most important things like self and family for far too long that one has pretty much lost one's way.  Bedraggled of hair and imagination, one is wearing torn, gray clothes in a torn, gray land, wondering what happened.  But scarily not caring overly much how and when it did happen so wrong.

It's REAL. And thank God some of my friends know what this is and have been there or are still there and regard this state of mind and heart with the death-like seriousness it deserves.  I am burned out utterly. 

Some say...

...that burnout is common for people in mid career.

...that it affects those in the "giving" professions, like medical professional, ministers, etc. more than others.  I don't quite qualify here, but whatev.

...that recovery is entirely possible - and I believe it. 

...that recovery takes time - and I believe it.

And I simply want to say, in the midst of this working on life with calloused fingertips with no fingernails and raw, bleeding tips - that I'm ok or will be.  But I also am confused. 

When did we get here?

-Lear