Somewhere between snapping at my mom, pretending to watch TV, and staring through the window at beautiful Florida sunshine I didn’t even have ten minutes to sit in… I decided something had to change.
Not eventually.
Not after I got more rest.
Not after life slowed down.
Not after I finally “got caught up.”
Now.
Because I’ve been running on empty for a long time. And not the trendy version people casually joke about online. I mean the kind where you’re still functioning. Still caregiving. Still answering questions. Still handling responsibilities. Still showing up for everybody else. Meanwhile, internally, just way off.
Every now and then, I think I’m doing better. I start exercising again. I breathe a little deeper. I feel a tiny bit more like myself. Then life happens.
One overwhelming moment. One emotional hit. One week with too many moving parts. And boom. Crash.
I get moody. Withdrawn. Quiet with some people. Snappy with the people safest to snap at. I stop exercising. I stop sleeping… or sleep too much. I overthink everything.
Sometimes I enter what I call pretend mode.
Pretending to relax.
Pretending to watch TV.
Pretending I’m mentally present while my brain is running laps around stress, responsibility, guilt, exhaustion, and everything I haven’t fully dealt with yet.
Just… pretending.
Most people don’t see it because, from the outside, life still looks handled. But internally?
Crappolla.
It feels like carrying emotional weight with no real place to set it down.
Running On Empty Became Rules of Engagement
And eventually, I realized I could not keep living in that cycle. That’s where ROE comes from.
ROE started as Running On Empty because that’s exactly how life felt — and some days, it still does.
Eventually it also became Rules of Engagement — how I decide what gets my energy while trying to survive that exhaustion.
Not perfectly. Not gracefully. Not from some healed mountaintop perspective. In real time. While still figuring it out.
This isn’t a side hustle for me. It isn’t a productivity project. This space exists because I needed breathing room. I needed something that interrupted the spiral before it swallowed me whole again.
What finally got my attention was realizing I might not recover from one of those crashes someday. Realizing that hit me hard.
Hard enough that I finally stopped saying:
“I’ll deal with myself later.”
And started building something that might help me stop disappearing inside my own life.
My Rules of Engagement (Right Now)
- If I’m already overwhelmed, the answer is probably no.
- Rest is no longer something I earn after collapse.
- I’m done explaining every boundary like it’s up for committee review.
- Protecting my peace is not selfish. It’s maintenance.
Will these change? Probably. But that’s the point.
ROE is not about perfection. It’s about paying attention to what keeps draining you and finally giving yourself permission to respond differently.
Maybe that means resting.
Maybe that means saying no.
Maybe that means disappointing people.
Maybe that means admitting you’re not okay before your body forces the issue for you.
I’m still learning.
Still spiraling sometimes.
Still crashing sometimes.
Still trying to untangle years of overextending myself while pretending I was fine.
But at least now I’m not pretending I’m fine all the time. And maybe that becomes breathing room for somebody else too.
Not a polished self-help platform.
Not a “she figured it all out” story.
Just one woman trying to stop running on empty before she loses herself completely.