Busy. And not. 09/24/04
Sometimes I’m content and feeling so lucky to be me, living my little life. Now and then I am completely distraught. I want to express all of that, both extremes and everything in between. I want to set down on the page here the stuff that bothers me and delights me.
Today I have anxiety about getting shit done. At work, I get frantic when tasks that need to be done arrive all at once. At home, I dwell on work or stress about non-work chores and responsibilities. I keep trying to come up with solutions to problems, and better ways to deal with situations. I go over in my mind all the things I could say or do. Planning, overthinking, wanting to be ready to deal with whatever life throws at me. Feeling that if I don't spend a lot of time figuring stuff out, then even more will go wrong.
(Eventually I will realize how I’m stressing myself out, and go back to being relaxed and content and confident a great deal of the time.)
Enough vagueness. Here's what's freaking me out today:
My boss may expect me to work this weekend, and saying "no" may be hard. I can do it, but am dreading her likely reaction (shouting at the manager, who will convey her displeasure to me), and the consequences (Boss possibly threatening to fire me).
It is likely that tonight will be the third day in a row that I go to bed early and exhausted and just pass out. I don’t want Steve to think I am ignoring him. I want to hang out and be sociable and fun-loving but it’s so hard to switch gears.
The landlady is coming to visit this weekend. She gave us short notice of her arrival, so we have been frantically spending all our free time during the last 3 days (both before going to work and all night after work, until we are too tired to move) CLEANING. Unfortunately she is a neat-freak obsession-ridden wreck of a woman, who may go ballistic if she sees a dandelion on the lawn. Perhaps the stains on the carpet, or the dust on the windows will set her off. All we can do is make the house and yard look as good as we can, with only a few days to undo months of neglect. We won't even be in town when she comes by, we're going camping. And I usually spend all my free time the week before an event getting ready for THAT. So much will be left undone, with the house and with preparations for this weekend's trip...
Stupid thing is, here I am at work, trying to find ways to entertain myself, and look busy. Because there is NOTHING for me to do here. Monday will be busy, but today, I have finished all the work they had ready for me. They're running behind but I'm well ahead, waiting for them to give me SOMETHING TO DO. I have had a decent amount of caffeine, to compensate for getting very little sleep during the past 3 days. So now I am full of pseudo-energy, determined to accomplish things, and I'm stuck here at work. Great.
However if I try to calm myself, slow down my hyperactive brain, at this point the lack of sleep could catch up to me and I'd pass out here in front of the computer if I blinked for a second too long.
