Burnout, White Rabbits, and the Fear of Falling Forever

The cursor blinks.

The early hour groans.

There’s no milk for the coffee - again.

Forgotten.

Like sleep.

Like stillness. Like rest.

And still, you sit there.

Half-dreaming, half-daring, all-in.

Welcome back.

Late Night Musings with Rogues & Scoundrels

Some mornings I wake up already behind.

You know the feeling, that low hum of panic before you even open your eyes.

Like the day has started without you, and no one, bothered to tell you the call time.

That’s when I see him again.

The white rabbit.

But unlike Alice’s distracted little fluff-ball, casually hopping over flower beds and glancing at his pocket watch, with a genteel “Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late…”

No, my white rabbit is an asshole.

He’s on a Ducati.

And he’s rage-screaming in my face.

Not so much a whisper of urgency, as a full-blown siren.

“You’re running late”.

“Running out of time”.

“Running towards ruin”!

The motorbike roars off, and I’m left clutching my creative dreams like a soggy to-do list.

Somewhere between

‘Write something brilliant’ and ‘Book the car in for a service’,

I wonder:

Wasn’t I supposed to be an artist today?

This is the tension I live in.

The eternal tug-of-war between the life I want and the life that must be managed.

Between vision and obligation.

Between the story I’m trying to tell, and the bills I’m trying to pay.

And what terrifies me most?

It’s not the speed.

It’s the fall.

What happens if I do chase him?

If I fall down that rabbit hole, and there’s no bottom?

No magic kingdom.

No wonderland.

Just free-fall?

After everything we do for everyone else, parent, child, partner, friend, employer, employee…

Is there anything left in the gas tank for us?

I want to believe there is.

But most days?

Just when I start questioning everything again, up pops Dorothy.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything in that bag for me”.

“Wrong story, kiddo,” I tell her.

And with a swift kick

“Back to Kansas with you.”

But I know why she’s here.

Because I’ve been tapping my red shoes for years, whispering: There’s no place like home.

Except when you’re a creative, the idea of home is blurry.

It’s not a place.

It’s a moment.

A feeling.

A flash of clarity, between deadlines, where the art breaks through.

Home is art, of being and making.

Of creating and consuming, of reading and responding.

There is a moment burned into the secret space nestled between the hippocampus, tucked up tightly in the folds of the amygdala, that rests inside every artist.

The moment when you first stepped away.

It’s a secret because it’s a betrayal.

You have every excuse, and many of them are valid.

There was a point in time when you just couldn’t do it anymore.

Your heart was broken.

So you walked away…

But just like the soft ache of a first love, art was the one that got away.

I let her slip through my fingers, and I’ve been looking for her ever since.

Because nothing has felt really, right.

So here I am, chasing dreams on an empty tank, dodging burnout, and still hoping the rabbit slows down just long enough for me to catch my breath and scribble something beautiful on the back of a grocery receipt.

If you're in this too: exhausted, inspired, scared and still scribbling - you're not alone.

We’re still chasing.

Still falling.

Still dreaming.

PS - buy milk.