Tag: June 2019

162 // Easy Peasy

I’m feeling much better this morning than I was yesterday, not just physically but emotionally too. I’m lighthearted and happy, willing to make jokes and to take a joke too. I woke on time but took my time getting ready for work. I arrived when I was ready, not when they wanted me. Luckily I’m largely unsupervised this week and as long as the work gets done no one will mind.

I actually spent most of the day working on wedding things. The officiant script is looking largely done and we’ve made considerable progress on the playlists. We have more supplies for the DIY backdrop and pretty gold paint for the grid panel and the candle holders. I have a couple of emails to send as well but my anxiety is asking that we wait until tomorrow.

After heading home early again I cleaned up some and got ready to head out again to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine while I watch my wife play a couple games of kickball. I wish the whole team good luck!

161 // Get Myself to Sleep

The day was all wrong from the start. The problem is, I went to bed far too late last night, again, and woke up feeling exhausted and groggy, just as I knew I would. I take responsibility for those choices and can honestly say, despite the consequences, I don’t regret a single thing.

So, I won’t dwell on the past or pretend to beat myself up. I’ll simply deal with the fallout the best I can—with strong coffee and a brisk walk or two to keep the blood flowing—and keep my mind on the light at the end of the workday tunnel.

The end of the day came, and it hit me hard. I struggled to stay awake all day in my conference class and as soon as I got home I wanted to crash out on the couch but I knew I couldn’t. I had resolved to start cooking at home again and put off the habit change too long. Food would start going bad if I didn’t get in the kitchen tonight.

I did it but I hated it and now my mood is soured.

I just need to sleep. I just need to get myself to sleep.

I’d considered staying home tomorrow since the three days of classes I’m taking (the one today and two others on Wednesday and Thursday) will be long but I cannot pass up the hours, no matter how tempting the rest would be.

I just need to get myself to sleep now…

160 // Sunday Night Blues

So much for an early night. The nap I took earlier is making it hard to want to go to bed now and knowing this is the last bit of weekend I have left for the next five days is making it hard to care. Sunday nights are the worst of the week and this one feels more depressing than most.

We bought a few wedding DIY supplies today and I’m bummed I’ll have long hours to work tomorrow instead of getting to come home and make pretty things for my big day. I’m not looking forward to the conference either though I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and do something new.

I’d rather be writing but I know deep down that if I did have the time I probably wouldn’t use it. My focus has been off and my motivation low. I’ll test myself instead and promise to do what I can with what I have wherever I am. I have my phone, my pens, and a notepad too. That’s all I need to write.

We’ll see what I do.

159 // Roles Reversed

I’m used to being the one who is up early on the weekends. I get up, make my coffee, make us breakfast, and make sure that my fiance gets up to eat and start her day. I get the cleaning done, and I get some writing done—if I can—but lately the roles have been reversed.

Now she gets up and goes for walks with the dog and wakes me when she returns. She makes sure I eat and this morning she cleaned most of the house. It feels good to be the one being waited on but it feels bad too. It feels good to have someone who understands that I haven’t been feeling great and who understands the work still has to get done even if I can’t do it, but it feels bad too.

I’ve been drinking cups of coffee and tweaking the blog. I’ve been posting the journal drafts I had half-written and starting posts for the coming week. Soon I’ll eat lunch and reverse the roles again. I’ll get up and get the laundry started and the kitchen cleaned. She, I imagine will rest for the rest of the afternoon and I will get a chance to take care of her. I imagine that will feel rather good.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

158 // The Best All Week

I thought this week would never end! I’m feeling much happier today and hoping to get back to work on my personal and writing goals today. The atmosphere at work is always a little laxer on Fridays. Not much gets done, not much is expected, and many of us spend the day socializing, going out to lunch, and leaving early. I plan to take advantage of the relaxed oversight and my improved mood to get back on track before the weekend.

So, that didn’t work out. I ended up socializing and going out to lunch right along with everyone else and just I got home the thunderstorms started rolling in and put me right to sleep. After a dinner of beer and leftover pizza, I spent the rest of the night cuddling up on the couch with my wife-to-be and finishing up the first season of Pose, the available episodes of Handmaid’s Tale, and the third season of Black Mirror.

It was a good day. The best all week.

P.S. After sending them back nearly a month ago for resizing our engagement rings finally made it back to us this afternoon. I’m ecstatic to say that my ring fits perfectly now and I love it even more than I did when I first received it. I finally feel like a bride again.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

157 // I Need to Sleep

Productivity will be impossible today.

In addition to the aforementioned fatigue that has been plaguing me and two nights in a row of staying up much, much later than I should, I took an allergy pill a coworker gave me this morning and find myself ready to fall asleep where I stand.

I’m growing increasingly irritated at the inconvenience of a day job and angry at having to force myself awake. I’ve had three espressos and seen zero signs of improvement and have resorted to walking around the building outside hoping to keep the blood flowing to my brain. I’m doing everything I can to outpace the drowsiness creeping into my limbs but I just need to sleep.

I’ll head home in just a few hours and do my best to squeeze in a catnap and a late lunch before I’m off to help my mom with a few things. I’m already looking forward to the evening when I’m back home. The plan is to crack a beer, eat something bad for me, and head right to bed.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

 

156 // Midweek, Mostly

It’s my second day at work after taking another three-day weekend and I’m already ready for the week to end.

I’m determined to work the rest of the week but my fatigue is terrible and only getting worse. Caffeine has stopped helping and I worry that increasing my intake will only make matters worse. I need more than rest or sleep. What I need is a break. I need time outside of time.

I need to get away from all the things that are making me anxious. I need to get away from work, from people, god, from myself most of all. I need to spend some time in deep focus I think. I have time to spend there but not enough time to get anything of substance or value done. Things interrupt me. I interrupt me.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

155 // A Dent in the Mess

I was back at work today, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I got in earlier than I have since school ended and I hope the trend continues. I want to start acting more like me even if I’m not exactly feeling like me. I want to start getting things done in all areas of my life again.

Tonight I cooked dinner, the first time in a month or more, I think. I made salmon sliders and hated it but my wife to be was impressed so somewhere I’m happy I suppose.

I’ve decided to go ahead with the “Essay a Week” challenge, starting the first week of July, I hope. I spent the evening getting a head start by cleaning up my old ideas, and prompts lists in Simplenote. I barely made a dent in the mess but what I did get through was inspiring. I love dusting off my old notes, expanding them, tearing them apart, tearing them up.

The hard part will be separating the pieces for the challenge and other fun things I want to posts and write. The even harder part will be not falling behind so I can write all those other fun things instead.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

154 // A New Project?

I stayed home again from work. I was hoping to intercept our engagement rings as they arrived from the postal service but I found out too late that they had been delayed and would not come today after all. Now I have to try to leave early tomorrow (or whatever new date and time the package tracking app demands I be available) to sign for it.

I spent the day doing what I always do when I get some free time; I cleaned the house. I should have been writing, but I didn’t know what to write so I finished up a few drafts here, backdated them, and pledged not to fall behind again.

I did come across a new 52-week writing challenge idea. Inspired by Andrea Askowitz, I’m thinking about writing an essay a week, every week, for the next year.

I think it would be good practice not just for writing but for focus and idea generation. I’ve always written best and most consistently when I have a direction and a deadline and this might just be what I need to start posting real content here and to start submitting pieces to other blogs and publications too. Plus, I think it would just be fun.

So, 50+ essays in the next year, whew! Should I do it?

These entries are inspired by TDH.se

153 // The Older I Get

Tonight we had dinner with my dad. I love seeing him, but it’s hard seeing him too. There are things bubbling below the surface: pain, misunderstanding, trauma, abandonment, and all sorts of questions too complicated to ask and answers too deep to dig from the past. At the same time though, there is so much love, and pride, and a connection that runs DNA deep.

It’s strange how all the same pain and confusion can exist between mothers and daughters too and yet with time the relationship develops quite differently and both end up nearly opposite from where they began. I was always a daddy’s girl but the older I get the closer I grow to my mom and the further away from my father I feel.

I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. I think it’s simply about gender and experience. I think it’s part of the process of growing from your parent’s child to their friend.  I know my mother and she knows me now in a way I can never know or be known by my father. I feel a comradeship with her connected to the pain of being a woman that I know now my father will never understand.

In my father is my past and in my mother, my future.

These entries are inspired by TDH.se