About the work stuff: we started talking about my exhaustion and overload exactly 11 months ago (I checked) when a close colleague of mine quit unexpectedly, I realized my only support at work was leaving and the situation sent me to 2 days of pretty much uncontrollable crying at work - since my boss was (and is) pretty deep in his own s**t both at work and in his personal life, he hadn't realized there was a problem before that happened. We talked about it, agreed on some steps to make the situation better and ease my workload, and then the discussion was paused for 2 months (various reasons) and resumed in February. A lot of things were said and we started scratching the surface of the real issues. Then came covid, and the discussion was again paused as we went into remote work and crisis management mode. This is where we've stayed for a good 8 months, until I brought it up again around the end of October. To his credit, he realized we'll never find time to talk about things properly during workdays without interruptions and schedule conflicts, so he suggested dinner and it was scheduled for this Wednesday. I was stressing about it all last week because I knew the discussion wouldn't be easy and I'd have to face some big demons. The dinner discussion was.... unexpected and sent me spiraling, and I haven't really slept or eaten normally since the dinner on Wednesday as I've been trying to explain to him the underlying problems and figure out how I feel about the huge career-altering choices and suggestions he gave me (again, nothing inappropriate, just very big career moves). Writing is a good way for both of us to express things, so that's what I've been doing. On Wednesday night until 3AM, on Thursday until midnight, and I've had my laptop open pretty much all weekend and I'm going back and forth processing things in my head and writing them down. To make things weirder, the board of directors had a meeting on Friday, and being their secretary is a part of my job; I'm present in the meetings, take notes, write all official documents, take care of scheduling, and also prepare the regular status update presentations the board is given, including the CEO reports. Well, this time he had prepared some initiatives about next year on his own, and he included things there that I know he wouldn't have normally, and they were pretty much direct answers to our discussion. So yeah, things at work are weird when my boss communicates his plans and promises to me via official initiatives to the board of directors (=his boss), knowing that I'm listening. It's actually a genius move on his part: since he's making those initiatives and promises to the board, he knows that I know it's taken seriously and the board will make him keep his word. Doesn't make things any less weird, though.