Last night, I hosted a large party. Last week, my partner started school, and I woke up early with him every day. The temperature has been changing wildly. I’ve had a number of deadlines and projects to juggle. Today, I feel tired.

It is an odd feeling, which I struggle to locate. My cheeks are slightly sagging. My stomach is heavy. My heels hurt. The back of my brain is coated in cotton. Movements, ideas, willpower, are not as sharp as usual. But more than that, tiredness brings a vague sense of fear. If something happened, I would not be there to face it with my full potential.

I look for quick solutions, tea, water, chocolate, as if ingesting the right product could fix it. I press on various points of my limbs, trying to massage the tiredness away. None of those work.

I will not explode with energy today. I may not need to. Tiredness feeds on itself. I did not anticipate it, neither should I project. Now, it colours my whole past and future. It is no more than a present state.

What would happen if I accepted and embraced tiredness, looking at it from a distance, acknowledging its presence, mindfully? Can I learn from tiredness, can it alert me to points of weakness? Stomach, calves, upper back, cheeks – where is my tiredness located, and what is it that I do with these parts of my body? Is any repeated strain coming to the surface that I could avoid? Could tiredness, if I let it be, help me develop better posture?