I have started over more times than I can count. New journals. New morning routines. New planners with colour-coded sections and weekly goals and motivational quotes at the top of each page. I’ve had the apps, the spreadsheets, the “this time it’s different” energy that lasts about eleven days before it quietly dies somewhere between […]
I had a day off last week. No work. No plans. Just me, the dogs, and a full day of nothing. And what did I do? I played Stardew Valley for about six hours. Made a cup of tea. Played more Stardew Valley. Ate something. Sat on the sofa with Lottie on my lap and
I work night shifts. Have done for a while now. And there’s this specific version of tired that people who haven’t done it don’t really get. It’s not sleepy tired. It’s not “I need an early night” tired. It’s the kind where your body has completely lost track of when it’s supposed to be awake
When you’re burnt out, a specific thing occurs. Nothing dramatic, though. Not the breakdown. The quiet version: you neglect small self-care acts until months pass without buying lip balm. Not because you can’t. Because somewhere along the way, you stopped being on your own list. You grab it for someone else while you’re out.
You held it together all week. Now you don’t know what to do with yourself. That particular kind of tired is hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t felt it. It’s not that you’ve done too much. It’s that you’ve been too many things to too many people, and somewhere in that, you forgot to
If you’ve ever sat down after a shift and wanted to be somewhere warm without actually having to go anywhere, you already know the feeling Coral Island is built for. Somewhere with a pace that doesn’t match yours. Somewhere that isn’t tracking what you owe it. I went in expecting a Stardew clone and came
There’s a particular flavour of exhaustion where your body is done but your brain hasn’t got the memo yet. You’re lying down, eyes open, thinking about emails or meals or something someone said three hours ago that you can’t quite let go of. You need something for your hands to do while the rest of
Some days you don’t have a decision left in you. Not one. You’ve spent them all on other people, on work, on holding yourself together in a way that looks effortless to everyone watching. And now someone’s asking what you want for dinner and you could genuinely cry. I found Abzu on one of those
My brain was still going at 1am. Body done. Brain looping. I needed something for my hands to do that wouldn’t make the thinking worse. I opened Unpacking because it looked simple. Didn’t expect to feel things about a toothbrush. That’s the trick of this game. It’s wordless. No instructions. No score. You open boxes
I played this on a day off that didn’t feel like a day off. The kind where you’re technically free but your nervous system hasn’t caught up. I needed something that wouldn’t add to the noise. Alba was so gentle it actually made me slow down. It’s a game about a girl visiting her grandparents’
