We have a new class this week and I can feel a difference in myself. I’m burned out. I’m not giving my best. I’m not enthusiastic or engaging…but I want to be.
I want to get back to being eager to hear other people’s problems and to help them work through their questions. I want to get back to being the kind of person who can lead people from their biases, their past expieriences, and their doubts to new information and ways of thinking and feeling. I want to get back to taking my role in the lives of the children we serve seriously and give these people my very best so they will take it as seriously too.
But I’m burned out and I don’t know how to get back.
All day I kept thinking it was Thursday when it’s not. I kept thinking Friday was closer than it actually is. I keep finding myself disappointed and exhausted looking at my calendar and down through the rest of the week and imagining the effort it’ll take to get there. It is and will continue to be a very long week.
No, today wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be. The worst of it was waking up a bit late this morning and rushing to get through my routine and out the door on time. After that things were all uphill, in a good way. There’s a lot of work to get done but my coworkers and I had more than a few good laughs and I have the energy to make it through the day. I’m doing better than most. Our problems are often reminders of our blessings, you know?
“Is speaking/(writing) subjectively an inherently selfish act? Can you still become no one if you find a subjective way to speak for yourself that also speaks for others? Can you speak for all those who came before you (especially those silenced) by speaking now? Do women get challenged more for speaking subjectively than men?”
It’s infusion day again. I had hoped today would go faster than last week but it’s been an hour and I’m still here hooked up to the I.V. and the bag isn’t even half empty yet. It’s still going to be a shorter stay than it used to be when I was on my old medication so i’m not complaining too much. The only thing that is worse now is that I don’t get to be in the big open comfy room with the big open windows and the gorgeous mountain views.
Instead I’m stuck in a room that I’m convinced used to be a janitor’s closet with no windows at all and no space for my wife to come in and sit with me. I’m told it’s due to the high demand for appointments at this center and because my infusion time is shorter than most others, I’m the one who gets the depressing “private infusion room”.
Oh well, at least the nurses are amazing and I will be out of here soon. I’m still working out what to expect after my infusions so I have the rest of the day off in case I need a nap. If I don’t, I’ll spend it cleaning and catching up on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It’s going to be good day either way because I get to be inside away from the cold and I don’t have to come back here for another month.
It’s one of the better Monday’s I’ve had in a while. There isn’t much going on for once. Some days there are big projects to do, other days you are just maintaining the process. Today is a maintenance day. The process, the boring but exceedingly important process is what I am focusing on today. Data entry, filing, cross checking, following up, verifying, updating, these are the key tasks for the day.
I love this kid of work. Teaching is great, being on the buses is great too, but sitting behind a desk with my headphones in just flipping through paperwork and organizing information in accessible and understandable formats will always be my where my passion truly lies.
This feels so good, so calming and easy, that I think I will make every Monday “process days” from now on.
This week I may be looking at a lot more free time than I’ve had in weeks and I do not want to waste it. I want to write, or at least to complete those tasks that have been looming over me. This week I have to be mindful, willful, and fierce in my defence of my focus and my boundaries. I have to be hard on those who would distract me and harder on myself still. I am my own worse enemy and my most clever and insidious saboteur.
This week I will:
Read 200 pages of It by Stephen King. I’m nearly 400 pages into the tome and I’m desperately trying to reach the approximate 600 page midway point. I didn’t read as many days last week as I’d hoped to but the days I did pick it up I was able to read quickly and blast through over 50 pages in a sitting easily. If I did this every night and shot for just 30 or 40 pages I could hit the halfway point by Sunday and perhaps glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. Bonus: Finish reading A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.
Turn a few of those notes scribbled on scrap paper that I call “ideas” into post drafts and choose one to explore and write 1000 words on. The desk in my “creativity room” is overflowing with notes on post-its, scrap paper, napkins, envelopes, and notebooks most of which I’ve waited so long to revisit that I cannot recall the context or meaning but if even 1% of those ideas is viable, I would have a wealth of concepts to write about. It’s time I start digging into the heap and turn the fragments into fully realized pieces.
Start a distraction journal. A schedule and a plan mean nothing if when it comes time to sit down and do the work all you can think about is the 100 other small things you have to do (or could be doing instead). I’m one of those people that writes two sentences and then gets up to do the dishes or switches tabs to check my email or picks up my phone to send a text and never gets back to the work. I’d like to keep a journal, or at least a piece of scrap paper next me where I can unload these impulses and thoughts onto, and then when the work is finally done I can devote guilt free time to these little tasks.
Finish my taxes. I have no excuse why this isn’t done yet except that I just keep forgetting to do them. It’s a daunting task and there are so many things to get done that feel more urgent. My mind is a limited space and the immediate tends to outweigh the important. What I fail to realize is that “immediate” should not have a monopoly over “important” and I have to be more mindful and more willful about what needs to get done “now”.
Vote. Just like my taxes my mind pushes my ballot to the back burned with the excuse that there is much to do now and this is both simple, straightforward, and not immediate. I have plenty of time so why not put it off in favor of what has to get done now? The problem is there is always more to do now and often what is not immediate or urgent becomes so from too much stalling. Either that or it is forgotten entirely until it’s too late. Avoid the guilt and the regret. Do it now and be done with it.
Be mindful of how much of my time I give away. I love hanging out with my friends and coworkers but sometimes we get carried away and a short visit takes up two hours or more of the day and when that starts to become a daily habit I lose a lot of time I could devote elsewhere. Of course I still need to see them, to laugh, to vent, to feel a part of a group and community but there has to be balance.
Schedule weekly phone calls with my loved ones. I’ve been carrying so much guilt about how much time passes between talking with my family and friends. The guilt builds up and the longer I take the harder it is to make the call but I desperately want to be the one that keeps the ties of my family and relationships strong. I want to be a part of people’s lives. I want my loved ones to know I love them; I think of them, and it matters to me what is going on in their lives.
This week I will not allow the failures of the past to keep me from moving forward. It’s no secret I struggle with self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. It takes me longer than most to recover from even the smallest mistakes and missteps and in my despair I lose passion, drive, and focus. This week I will work hard to talk to myself and understand my mistakes as I would a close friend or loved one. I will not engage in the self depreciating talk I have in the past. I will not give up on myself.
P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 08.
Hello, happy Sunday, and thank you for stopping by for a bit of caffeine and catching up.
It’s another late start here this morning. It’s been late starts for over a week now despite the restful nights I’ve been having. It seems there is a new kind of exhaustion plaguing me. The weather isn’t helping either. Snow is falling in big, slow flakes this morning and is forecast to continue throughout the day. It’s going to be an indoor day which is just fine. I have plenty of chores and projects around the house and a few writing and reading things I want to do too.
So, please, pull up a chair and fill up a cup. I’ve got the usual: blond roast grounds steeped to maximum strength in the French press with frothy vanilla oat milk (or soy if you prefer) to pour over top. Let’s talk about last week.
“Coffee doesn’t lie. It can’t.”
― Howard Schultz, Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this past week was short, stressful, and, somehow, surprisingly fun.
We were all off on Monday for President’s Day. I am coming more and more to understand the four-day workweek movement. Three days off from work seems to be the perfect amount with one day to get out and have fun or see friends and family, one day to run errands or complete a house project, and a third day to either devote to personal pursuits and passions or to do nothing at all if you need.
I spent a day with my wife and her family, a day doing nothing but reading, and a day cleaning and getting ready for the week.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that the holiday meant the work week started on Tuesday, but not really. Our district always has the day after President’s day off too but some of us are given the option to come in and start projects or catch up with projects that have slipped through the cracks. I spent it completing my Heartsaver Instructor Essentials Online course and cleaning up equipment and paperwork that had started piling up. It wasn’t the quiet day I had hoped for but it was a nicer way to start the week.
Wednesday was the real start and rather than feeling disappointed or dragging my feet at having to return at all my coworkers and I found ourselves joyful and quick to laughter instead. It was the most fun workday I’ve had in a long time and just what I think all of us needed. Sadly, it didn’t last, and Thursday and Friday lacked the same vitality and vibrancy.
A lot of it came from our employee shortage and differences and unfairness across teams coming to a head. We’re all feeling burned out, defensive, and angry. The slightest inconveniences, misunderstandings, or criticisms feel like the last straw and no words or advice or comfort are helping. These problems have been bubbling below the surface for so long that there is no longer hope for change or willingness to resolve. Egos and stubbornness are running rampant and though I’ve managed to keep my head the negativity and hopelessness are draining me.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this weekend I was able to get out and forget about all of that gloom and cynicism. Friday night I hung out with my wife at home gorging ourselves on mediocre pizza and catching up on all the dumb shows we missed during the week. It was a calm and comforting end to the chaos.
Saturday we had plans to head south to Colorado Springs for a family event but there were issues with timing and coordination and we weren’t able to make it. Not wanting to waste the gorgeous weather (or the time spent getting ready) and knowing there was another snowstorm rolling over the mountains and heading right for us we decided to blow off all the things we should do and go impulse shopping together.
I ended up with a “houseplant toolset”, a beautiful young split-leaf philodendron, and a new book, Borne by Jeff VanderMeer. There was plenty of window shopping too, a trip to Starbucks, and a stop at our favorite burger place before heading home to get cozy and watch The Lighthouse, a back and white horror film from my favorite studio following two lighthouse keepers losing their minds on a remote island in the 1890s. It’s not for everyone but I still highly recommend it.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that health-wise I’m feeling somewhat better.
The cold I had been fighting is nearly gone but I have lingering congestion that is driving me crazy. I’m not entirely sure that the cold is to blame though. I’m leaning more toward early allergies or a side effect of the new medication I started the Tuesday before last.
This coming week I’ll have my second infusion appointment and a few days later a scheduled phone visit with my doctor. I have very little to tell her which is the same as good news I suppose. I’ve had a watchful eye out for side effects or returning symptoms and so far all I’ve had this runny nose. It’s frustrating but I’m not complaining too much. I would take a little runny nose over the severe sinus and throat pain I felt just over a week ago or the ulcerative colitis flare I was fighting a month ago. Compared to all that I’m feeling right as rain again.
Searching my support groups I’ve found others who suffered cold-like symptoms after starting the same medication and they’ve given me hope that within a few doses (which is actually a time period of months) the side effects should clear up.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you that it’s getting late. The snow has stopped, and the sun has long gone down below the horizon. The house is clean, I’ve eaten dinner, and now it’s time for dessert and the latest episode of The Outsider. It’s time shut my mind down and let myself forget about the rest of the world for just a little while longer before the work-week begins.
I hope you had a good week. I hope that you are feeling well. I hope you remember to wash your hands frequently and that you know to take a little zinc at the first sign of a cold. I hope that you’ve noticed the sun rising earlier in the mornings and setting later and later every evening and that gives you hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that spring is on her way.
I wish this was another three-day weekend away from work and life’s obligations and though it isn’t, I’m trying to be grateful to have any three-day weekends at all rather than being disappointed that this one isn’t. I’m trying to focus on what needs to be done rather than wallowing in what I’d rather not do.
This week my wife and I swapped our usual house cleaning duties. She took over the laundry, because she gets it done faster and more efficiently than me, and I took over cleaning the bathroom because she hates doing it. She kept the grocery shopping, and I kept the dishes and we are still alternating meal prep duties. I’m grateful for a relationship where gender roles are non-existent and no expectations are set in stone.
Everything is negotiable. Everything is changeable.
I was supposed to be in Colorado Springs for a family event but the schedule changed, then changed back too late for my wife and I to make the drive down there. We’d spent the morning getting ready and not wanting to waste the time (and being in need of cheering up) we decided to get out, enjoy the nice weather, and buy ourselves something nice in the process.
We started out on my favorite lawn and garden place to buy new pots and my dream plant, a small monstera deliciosa more commonly known as a split-leaf philodendron.
The warm temperatures and the rows and rows of greenery made it easy to pretend it was Spring. I only wish the weather was going to last. Looking at the extended forecast it seems winter will return at least until next weekend. Maybe I will return and pretend again for a while then.
I got a new book, Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, an impulse buy based totally on the fact that I enjoyed another one of his books, Annihilation. I was tempted to get 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami but that book always scares me. I’m afraid I my expectation of it are too high and that I will ultimately hate it. Next time, next time…
Came home with burgers, fries, and milkshakes for dinner, dimmed the lights and put on The Lighthouse. When the movie ended my first thought was “what the fuck was that”? I didn’t like it but the more I think about it, the more I see the genius of it. It about the lies we tell and the lies we tell ourselves. It about jealousy, socialization (male socialization in particular), desire (male desire in particular), isolation, jealousy, and anger, just to name a few things.
It was entertaining and creepy, but a little too weird to make it onto my list of favorites. Glad I saw it, but I didn’t pay to see it in a movie theater.
The emotional toll I took yesterday is lingering and I find it hard to shake my sympathies for my coworkers pain and my worried that her pain might become my pain some day.
I’m finding it hard to smile or to laugh and my friends, all going through their own small frustrations and sufferings, are unable to pull me out of this whole and I, in turn, am unable to help them too. And that’s okay. They don’t owe me emotional support on demand and I don’t owe them the same. We have to suffer silently sometimes. We all have to learn to self-sooth.
Today I’m choosing to put my headphones in and let music carry me to other moods. I’ve got my calendar out and I’m filling it up with some writing ideas. It’s looking pretty bare but perhaps one or two pieces a month is all I can, or should, ask from myself.
I’m looking forward to going home and being with my wife. She need not cheer me up and I don’t expect her to say the right things or the one thing that will get me out of it. She doesn’t need to do anything to comfort or cheer me. She just has to exist in the same general space as me and suddenly the world, and I, and right again.
Read 200 pages of It by Stephen King. I’m nearly 400 pages into the tome and I’m desperately trying to reach the approximate 600 page midway point. I didn’t read as many days last week as I’d hoped to but the days I did pick it up I was able to read quickly and blast through over 50 pages in a sitting easily. If I did this every night and shot for just 30 or 40 pages I could hit the halfway point by Sunday and perhaps glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. Bonus: Finish reading A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.
Start a distraction journal. A schedule and a plan mean nothing if when it comes time to sit down and do the work all you can think about is the 100 other small things you have to do (or could be doing instead). I’m one of those people that writes two sentences and then gets up to do the dishes or switches tabs to check my email or picks up my phone to send a text and never gets back to the work. I’d like to keep a journal, or at least a piece of scrap paper next me where I can unload these impulses and thoughts onto, and then when the work is finally done I can devote guilt free time to these little tasks. 
Lisa Marie Blair 