Tired, so tired…

I’m a workaholic.

Not your classic workaholic, although I have been that, too. No. This type of workaholism is about needing to feel productive all of the time. It’s a FOMO that if I am not getting something done I might miss an idea or moment or thing, and regret missing it.

Today, I find myself with an extra hour. I am annoyed that I left a book I am supposed to read at school. And a little bit glad I can’t be doing schoolwork right now. But, still, it might be nice to get it read so I can see what the problem is. And so I can see if I want to teach it, later.

I will have more time again tomorrow.

There is sickness in our house and so Grandbaby can’t come and visit. I am missing him already, am sad that I won’t have that time to be fully focused on him. I don’t feel I am missing anything when he is here. He is my job. Nothing else matters.

Not today.

I am home and feeling an unease in my tummy. My inner critic is lecturing me. Go out into that garden you haven’t touched for weeks. Take a walk—another one, who cares if you walked already this morning? Read a book—you have plenty on the go.

The books I am reading are about writing and how to write better. I’d like to read a grammar book, just to freshen up my skills and remember what the labels are for all of the rules I allow myself to break here on the screen, but none are handy and I can’t be bothered looking for them.

My hip is aching. I have spent all of my life crossing my legs. It has finally caught up with me. I know the hip needs resting and so I stop myself crossing my right knee over my left. It wearies me to keep reminding myself not to do it.

I am weary, too, due to a broken sleep. Reflux woke me. A mix of poor eating and anxiety, even though there isn’t anything important to be anxious about. That is how things go in life. I’d like to blame it on my trauma, and that is possible, but more likely is that I am upsetting myself over things that don’t matter. I do that.

I grow tired, too, of the sensation of being watched and judged and so make more effort with my appearance and pleasantness. Part of this effort with pleasantness is a genuine and natural concern for others. I don’t so much worry for them as feel that someone ought to check in, ought to say ‘you aren’t alone’, ought to see their humanity in the difficulty that is life.

I remember, just now, that I have forgotten a friend I often catch up with. The knowledge that there is nothing left in the tank to give her pulls a tightness across my heart, a physical tightness. My GP says that it is normal to have physical responses to certain emotions. She once had a sore leg for no other reason than that she was upset; it passed. She sends me for a scan anyway. I don’t go.

This heartache—this dull pain in my left breast—is about tiredness, too. I know my friend. She is kindness itself. She always thinks the best of me. So much so that I remember to do the same for others just because she does it for me. Not so much for myself.

‘Let the trauma stand up for you,’ she tells me. She has read the poetry. She knows. She knows, too, that I am hard on myself. She tells me ‘You are hard on yourself’. She’s good like that. Honest. Kind. Not in it for herself, even though there is much I want to be able to offer her. I do my best. She has her share of troubles, too.

I sit myself in front of the computer, intending to finish my paper. The presentation I am giving in Paris in a month’s time is due next week. It is close to being done—so close. I did some final edits yesterday at the hairdresser. Colour in and curing, I whisper-read under my breath and wrote a new opening. It’s better than it was.

I haven’t typed up those edits. They sit here in front of me—work I could be doing. Instead, I am talking to you, telling you about my day, wondering how you are, wondering how things have changed for you, wondering how they have stayed the same for me.

This is life. It tires a person out.

What I need is soup and toast for dinner, a cosy blanket, and time to stare at the TV before getting into bed and starting again tomorrow.

Good thing that’s what I’ve got.

This helps, too.