Out of the dark subconscious, a chant echos along the many hollows of the mind—I need, I need, I need! Sweating with shame, ego drips sweetly from the mouth—I love you, I love you, I love you. You think you found the best way to have both, but you only found the worst way to do either.
Tag: Fragments
Break Like Waves
Crisis after crisis, they break like waves. Some can ride them, and some get sucked under. It all depends on how you start and the skills you cultivate. It depends even more on the ones who taught you and the ones who are meant to pull you out.
Today was made of many small fortunes. The route I rode this morning was a long overdue reminder that this job can be both fun and rewarding if you put forth the effort to make it so. Of course, I knew that, but it’s been a long time since I felt it.
There was plenty of work to do around the office when I got back but none of it was hard and all of it made me feel proud and useful. There was time to read afterward and despite my fatigue I was still able to be cherry and social with my coworkers.
I took advantage of the rare opportunity to go home early today and promptly wasted it on an accidental nap. Oh well, it’s not like I’d have had the time on a normal day anyway and it’s not like I did nothing at all. Small chores and catching up on reading count for something, don’t they?
The evening is less easy but there is still good here too. I’m going off to bed only wishing we were further along in the workweek. As for the rest, I am content.
The fatigue has returned. The day was easy on me and the people around me were understanding and undemanding and still I struggled to keep up. I crave sleep and where I couldn’t get it I at least craved solitude and silence. I got neither but thank God for headphones. At least I could tune out the undesirable and listen to music to music to match my mood.
I spent a lot of time reading in the afternoon. I made the mistake of trying to read four different books at once in a desperate attempt to make up as much lost ground in my reading goals as I can, but I am beginning to doubt the strategy. Not because I don’t like the books, or because I feel overwhelmed, but because now all I want to spend my time doing is reading those books. I suppose there are worse ways to waste time.
The evening is better. My wife and I cooked dinner together, something new, savory, satisfying. Tonight feels like another Sunday, not rushed, not stressful, and tomorrow the week will be a day closer to done.
Today was actually kind of a bad day, a rare occurrence for the weekend, but it was one of those bad days that while sad, and stressful, and hard, leaves you feeling grateful underneath it all too.
It was a bad day, but it wasn’t just my bad day. It was a bad day, but I wasn’t alone. I was supported and loved and I gave support and love too. I know bad days are inevitable but I wish every bad day could feel like this. I wish everyone, if they had to have a bad day, at least got to have bad days like this sometimes too.
Today I attempted to plan a perfect day for someone else. I felt like my wife, who is always doing so much for others and planning everything, deserved a day doing things only she loves and a day in which she didn’t have to worry or think or decide what comes next.
I planned a day for her and inadvertently experienced my own perfect day. Perhaps it’s only because we enjoy so many of the same things. Perhaps I failed in my endeavor and actually planned my own perfect day instead (this is very possible) or perhaps just seeing her happy and knowing that she knows how much I love her is what my perfect day really looks like.
The work week was a short one, shorter or me than most of my coworkers even, and I still felt like it lasted twice as long as it really did. When I write that or say it out loud, it sounds like a ridiculous thing to be upset about. More time—even miserable work time—is a gift I guess. It’s all about perspective.
I woke up early this morning, too early to get ready for work and still too late to make going back to sleep worth it. I lay there in the dark worrying over recent frustrations, future to-do items, and all the ways I am failing in life. I lay there breathing hard and growing increasingly anxious and upset until I was practically vibrating.
I knew that if I didn’t get up and get some of this bad energy out of me I’d never recover the day. So I got up, grabbed my running shoes and the dog and ran it out as much as I could before I had to return and start the day.
Since then I’ve arrived at work early, eaten a healthy breakfast, gone for another walk, picked up a few groceries, and nearly hit my step goal for the whole day. It’s 7:30 A.M. and I feel amazing! I wonder what else I will accomplish today?
I’m picking up my old journal again tonight. Since I have been posting here, I stopped writing in the physical one, stopped carrying it around with me, hell, I couldn’t even tell you where it is at the moment, but, suddenly, I need it desperately.
Some stresses, misfortunes, and pain, and even some joys and expressions of love only half belong to us, more often even less, and telling a story that isn’t yours alone is, at best, not your place, and, at worst, a betrayal. Still, I must speak and writing has always been the only way, the only place I can speak as just myself with no filter, influence, or fear.
I’m struggling to send an email, just one email. I’ve written it and rewritten. I’ve had it proofread by two different people and then rewrote it again.
It’s hard to explain what you do to other people, and harder still to explain it to your bosses. They decide if what you do is right, or enough, or worth paying a person to do at all. It’s hard to meet expectation that weren’t spelled out explicitly and it’s hard to know what people want when they never told you they wanted anything.
I’m probably way over thinking this.
I took the day off today and I feel awful about it. See, the day wasn’t meant to be for me alone. It was meant to be spent with someone else but she ended up having to go to work. Now I feel guilty for still staying home when I could have, should have, gone in and avoided all this bad headspace.
And, what am I doing with my time? Nothing productive so far. The internet is a massive distraction and I am considering turning all theses screens off and going to read on the couch for a few hours instead. I figure that’s a much better use of my time than checking social media or tweaking the look of my blog, yeah?
Of course, what I should be doing is writing, but, of course, it’s the last thing I can get my mind to focus on. I’ve done the dishes, taken a nap, caught up on the news, I even pulled weeds!, just to keep from sitting in this chair and doing the work. Oh well, it felt good to be alone, to enjoy the silence, and that isn’t something I have always been able to do.
Lisa Marie Blair 