Finding My Way Back to Unwinding

Today I was driving back home from the market. Don't ask me what I went to the market to do; a lot. I was super exhausted and a friend came to mind when I drove past her office. My thought at that moment was to pick her from work if she was at the office and just talk with someone as I drove home. Well, she wasn't requested to be at the office today so yeah my wish couldn't be met. I reached for my phone and put a call through to reach her. We first did our usual catching up over the phone and then got talking about stress. I asked her; "What do you do at home since you're mostly indoors all the time". I asked this out of curiosity because I have always felt like there should be normal people out there - I sincerely believe my life is not normal. She mentioned what she does with her time when she is home… the regular stuff; do something on my laptop, movie, social media and sleep. Usually, when I ask people this question; I like them giving me atomic level details into everything because I want you to do the talking and I just listen - it calms me down haha. Not like I don't care about what you're saying but I also can't remember most of the things the person would say - due to selective retention (talk for another day). Well, she seems to not be the type to talk at length so before I could get into my relaxed mode, she threw a question back at me; "how do you unwind?". Immediately, my OS glitched. haha… I was quiet for a while and she kept on saying "hello.. hello…". In my mind, I had travelled into deep thoughts. I really wanted to respond but then couldn't pick on anything that I had done recently to unwind. Earlier in the day, I had made a statement in my work group chat that had just my friends; "I perceive burn out close by" and they replied: - "Slow down o" - "or look for another activity" - "do something that takes your mind off code" - "u dey do consultation and run a business" - "organise some beach or pool day" It has just been a few days over the first week of September, 2025. This seems to be the cycle every year for me in the past 3-4 years. Just when the year is about to close curtain for the last Q4, my mind starts playing game of lock in. The year always starts with me locking in and continues to Q3 and for some reason; I plan to rest for Q4 but still want to double up on the grind in Q4. I realised that ever since I was little, I did a lot of things but none were any proper mind relaxing activity - except for making music and I haven't actively done that in the past 3 years. Well, today for some unknown reason, I decided to open this writing app that lets you focus on just writing your thoughts and not caring about mistakes, grammar or vocabs. Hopefully this becomes a habit and not only when I feel overwhelmed that I come here to pour my thoughts out - even though that's what I see happening at the beginning haha. I plan to keep this raw as is, no edits, no AI edits or additions. Just me, my thoughts and the words I know to express them. I know I am on a journey, definitely not where I want to be yet, but grateful am not where I used to be. Catch you on another rant. Bye. Peter Onisha