Personal statement fatigue

[secondtimer14]

Anyone else struggling to write their application essays? I'm only applying to a few schools (2-4, all direct-entry MSNs) but between all the short answer essays and wanting to make it perfect I feel drained. And the personal statements each want you to address three-ish questions with three-ish subquestions each, all in one 600-800 word essay. I'm finding it really hard to respond to all the prompts asked without making the essay very, very dry (this is what I know about advanced practice nursing, this is why I'm interested, this is why I want to go here) . I'm trying to squeeze in a short anecdote at the beginning to make the essay feel more personal, but every anecdote I can think of feels overplayed and corny (even though I mean it!) 

Not looking for advice so much as commiseration - anyone else struggling with this? It just feels like such an important part of the application, since the rest is so dry and generic (grades, more grades, resume, test scores, and grades), and as I'm an older applicant (in my 30s) there's so much explaining I'd like to do of how I got to this point and why it took me this long etc.

I applied to a completely different field graduate program 10 years ago, and the personal statement was literally "show us your personality, write a 2 page statement on whatever you want," which sounds really good right about now. ?