She was tired. Tired of all of it.

She sat cross-legged in her computer chair, pondering over the post she had just read on Facebook. After reading such an honest article, it seemed no wonder she was tired.

Here, in the quiet sanctuary of her apartment, she sat in the clothing she had worn to bed. Her legs were covered in black, oversized yoga shorts. The soft, comfy kind that didn’t fit her body like painted fabric or make her look sexy. She had a 3xl bright orange shirt on. It was a shirt her fiance had worn to work, his scent woven into the fibers which helped to fight back the feelings of loneliness that seemed to invade her days more and more often. There was no bra under the shirt; yet another factor adding to her comfort. Her hair was still a rats nest from sleeping, tangled and forgotten atop her head. Groggily she had clipped the mess up with a non-descript hair clip, saving that particular task, one of many on her never-ending to-do list, for a later time when the tiredness wasn’t winning.

Tired… yes… Even though she had slept through the night, she had awoken tired and soul weary and unable to place why so many of her mornings seemed to feel this way now. Unable, that is, until she had read “the post”.

It was a post about all of the misconceptions and untruths written by male authors in books; untruths about what it was like to be a female character. It was a post about how bras actually suck and showering isn’t a sexy 15-minute escape from reality; how hair doesn’t cascade down your back like a shimmering waterfall. It was a well-written piece about how women are human, not perfection.

The post had struck a chord and its resonation still thrummed within her mind.

Here, alone, it didn’t matter what she looked like or what she wore. Her thoughts didn’t have to be edited. She could feel, look, and be tired and it was ok. Here she was safe from the opinions and expectations of others. Here she could be her true self. Yet “here” was not a place she could stay and that knowledge is where her tiredness stemmed from.

Soon she would have to shower and care about how she looked in the eyes of others. She would have to wrestle with her curly hair and make it seem halfway presentable. She would have to find decently matching clothes suited for the weather. She would have to figure out her shopping list for groceries, remembering odds and ends like body wash or pads if needed. She would have to go out and contend with people after working a 60-hour workweek where she cared for and felt empathy for her patients. She would have to call and make her pre-op appointment for her cancer surgery and find time to fill out her living and last will. Those thoughts hung most heavily on her shoulders. Though she had been assured the surgery would go well, her mother had already died and she had learned the lesson that nothing in life is guaranteed.

Why did it matter if she wore makeup or not when she had to figure out things like funeral arrangements and who would inherit her handful of worldly possessions? Why did she have to be perfect all the time regardless of what was or wasn’t going on in her life? Why couldn’t she simply be enough as she was?

She had all of these heavy topics and hard situations vying for attention and energy and yet she still had to waste effort on how she looked. She had to not only navigate her own life but the expectations of strangers who knew nothing about her. What would they think if she didn’t wear makeup? How big of a scandal would it be to go out dressed as she was now, comfortable and content?

These people would judge her, label her, condemn her simply from appearance alone. None of her struggles or emotions mattered to the outside world. She had to be perfect, always, except here in her sanctuary, and that’s why she was tired. The weight of the outside world threatened to crush her shoulders before she had even left her bed.

Here was where she could cry and be comfortable and tired and not care about the world. Here expectations didn’t matter; didn’t exist. Here was where she could be her true self, not the self society expected, demanded, and ridiculed her for not being.

If I don’t do these things, I’m not good enough. Being an A+ college student doesn’t matter. Paying my bills on time doesn’t matter. Saving lives doesn’t matter. None of it matters unless I conform to this sick, fucked up, circus show where it matters more about how you look than what you are going through or doing with your life.

She was tired of playing the game. She was tired of pretending for the comfort of others. She was tired of being at the bottom of her own list with unknown strangers taking precedence over her self.

So she wrote.

She let all of those emotions flow from her fingers into the keyboard in front of her as she sat, cross-legged and grungy. She gave up restraint. She gave up pretense. She wrote and poured her hurt and tiredness onto a white canvas that didn’t care about appearance; that accepted her for her.

And once she was done, silent tears drying on her makeup-free face, she felt somehow cleaner, clearer. She didn’t care anymore about the game or the strangers or the crushing expectations of perfection. She decided to let it all go and to simply be herself for that day, and for the first day in many days, it was a glorious day.