Last year, I was pushing myself to write, every day. Through illness, stress, and everything. I wrote. That all came to a shuddering halt when I got sick (again) in November. No idea with what – other than a negative Covid test, the medical field was completely uninterested in me. ‘Stay far away from us,’ they basically said. ‘We don’t care what’s wrong with you as long as it’s not Covid.’ Demoralizing, and left me struggling just to do the bare minimum of work and family. I am physically recovered. Most days. The writing? Hasn’t fully come back online, although I am writing again, finally.
I spent my day today with a test that required my physical presence, but not so much on the mental. Which means I had this lovely thing percolating through my brain all day. Until I got home. After I’d done my usual routine of checking in with son and husband and dinner…
I’m sitting here staring at what I dictated, and thinking “I wonder what life would be like if I came home from work and had no work obligations?”
What if?
I mean, I can and do watch TV. Sometimes. The Little Man has two shows he insists we watch together every week, and it’s fun because we talk plots, characters, world-building, and in one of them, I kvell about the portrayal of the criminal justice system (are there any Hollyweird shows that get it right?) This is a good thing for both of us, and I look forward to it. I also use Chopped for background noise. It doesn’t require me to pay a huge amount of attention, although sometimes it makes me want to get up and cook!
I could read. Oh, I have so many books! My tsundoku will never subside, I know this. And I could take the time to read every night, maybe take notes. Learn things. Exercise my mind. I do this, as much as I can. It’s not that I don’t read, I just don’t read to satiation. I’m not sure I can!
I could sleep. Well, maybe not. The days where I could lay down and sleep the night and more are gone. I’m having trouble getting my mind to stop and let me sleep enough. I get sick if I don’t sleep a bare minimum.
I complain a lot. I don’t mean to. But when I sit down at the end of a long day like this, that’s all that is left. This sense of loss and guilt. That I hadn’t done enough. That I cannot do enough. And I wonder, some nights, what it would be like to not have this feeling.
I’m not sure that’s possible. I’m just writing what falls out of my head, now, and the internal struggle is more evident here, on the page. I never intended the blog to be my journal, and it isn’t entirely. There are times I don’t dare open up the new post window. I’m afraid of what would come out. I do filter, really! So why do I let posts like this one, so introspective, see the public eye? Perhaps I’m not the only one. There’s struggle for us all, and it would be disingenuous of me to conceal mine. I don’t think I could, tell the truth. I’m too transparent.
I’m tired. I’ll feel better when I’ve gotten some rest.
Comments
3 responses to “Free Time”
Sometimes we push ourselves when there is no reason? Because we think we don’t deserve rest? Saying this because this sounds like me. If I won the lottery, I would have to find a job because you are not supposed to sit still and do nothing…this is an invalid assumption from the subconscious that we need to strangle somehow.
Actually, I don’t think it’s healthy physically or mentally for us to sit still and do nothing for too long (speaking from experience here — my bad back has really been limiting my activities the last few years). But on the other hand, we do need to have relaxing time. That’s just as important to our mental and physical health as having work to do is.
Having something to do is different, I think, than being required by others (society, whatever) to go to work. And, relaxing and doing what makes you happy is very necessary. I am lucky, I have been able to leave academia and focus on my own work because I have a hugely supportive husband. And, now that I don’t *have to* wake up at a certain time, I’m up at 6am. Before, you had to drag me out of bed because I didn’t really want to deal with any of it.