Exhaustion: Code Black

"I'm tired."

Those three words never seem to carry enough weight.

Because when a Black woman says she's tired, she isn't usually talking about needing a nap.

She's talking about carrying generations.

She's talking about making miracles out of minimum wage.

She's talking about being everyone's emergency contact while no one asks if she's okay.

She's talking about smiling through meetings after crying in the parking lot.

She's talking about comforting everyone else while silently wondering who will comfort her.

There is a level of exhaustion that feels uniquely familiar to Black women. It isn't simply burnout. Burnout assumes there was a time when the work stopped.

For many of us, it never has.

We learned early that excellence was the minimum requirement. That we had to work twice as hard to receive half the recognition. That mistakes weren't just mistakes—they became stereotypes. That strength wasn't optional. It was expected.

So we became strong.

Strong daughters.

Strong mothers.

Strong sisters.

Strong professionals.

Strong friends.

Strong leaders.

Strong enough that people stopped asking if we needed help.

Strength became our identity, while exhaustion became our secret.

Sometimes I think about those old '90s video games. You'd spend hours fighting your way through every level, convinced you were almost done. Then the final boss would appear.

Just when you thought you had nothing left...

Another battle.

That's what Black woman exhaustion feels like.

You finally survive one crisis, and another arrives.

You pay one bill, and another is due.

You celebrate one accomplishment, and someone questions whether you deserved it.

You finally catch your breath, and life reminds you that breathing was never part of the schedule.

It's an exhaustion that isn't measured by hours worked.

It's measured by emotional labor.

By code-switching before 9 a.m.

By being "the bigger person."

By explaining racism to people who insist it no longer exists.

By advocating for yourself without being labeled difficult.

By carrying your family while pretending the weight isn't crushing you.

By constantly proving you belong in rooms you already earned the right to enter.

It's the exhaustion of surviving systems that were never designed with you in mind.

And yet...

Every day, Black women get up anyway.

We braid our daughters' hair.

We encourage our friends.

We mentor people who remind us of ourselves.

We build businesses.

We earn degrees.

We lead meetings.

We create community.

We pray through tears.

We laugh because sometimes laughter is the only thing keeping us from falling apart.

People call it resilience.

Sometimes I wonder if they confuse resilience with necessity.

We aren't resilient because suffering made us stronger.

We're resilient because we had no choice but to keep moving.

But here's what I want every Black woman reading this to hear:

You do not have to earn your rest.

You don't have to justify being tired.

You don't need permission to admit that carrying everything has become too heavy.

Rest is not quitting.

Asking for help is not weakness.

Choosing yourself is not selfish.

And laying down the weight, even if only for a moment, is not failure.

It is survival.

Maybe that's what healing looks like.

Not becoming stronger.

But finally believing you don't have to carry the whole world by yourself.

Because even the strongest women deserve somewhere safe to put their burdens down.