The problem with breaking off to “fix” burnout

Resting means that underlying fears and sadnesses come to the fore.

I have walked a long way on tarmac, and my feet ache. I’ve been forced to confront the uncomfortable.

I decided to take time out from my work as a journalist and foreign correspondent. The duration remains unspecified, as I don’t know how much time is necessary – or how much I can stand. After working non-stop, I had exhausted myself. I needed – and still need – some time to rest, to drain my overflowing brain of the constant barrage of information, data, ideas, quotes, stories, and sentences that form a ticker-tape across my mind.

The problem with prising myself away from this non-stop flow is that it forces me to confront the emptiness. Holidays are filled with the discomfort and loneliness of being – things that I know I usually ignore. I am on a break in a place (Washington, D.C., USA) so different from that which has become home (Beirut, Lebanon). I have spent a week “moseying”: I have walked the streets of the U.S. capital and made my feet hurt, wearing myself out to try to distract myself again from the sadness. I have shopped, and bought clothes that perhaps don’t fit the life that I live (shift dresses and crop tops don’t really fit my work beat – reporting on political Islam and post-conflict societies). I have finally met contacts who have become friends. I have laughed with them, and been driven on DC’s clean, efficient roads, and eaten tasty meatloaf. I have used a clean, quiet underground train and drunk bad coffee that looks and…