Self-Employed, Self-Exhausted
For most of my adult life, I’ve worked like I’m running out of time. Maybe because I am. (Aren’t we all?) The leukemia diagnosis and relapses certainly intensified the urgency I feel around work, but the truth is my sense of self-worth was tethered to my output long before that. I used to think that once I made it—got the book deal, built a steady-enough stream of freelance work, stashed away some savings to weather a health crisis or creative drought—I’d finally feel free to slow down when I w