When you’re always doing something, soon the desire to do anything will inevitably dwindle down to nothing.
This is where I am right now. I am looking burnout straight in the eye, and it is an ugly, squinty little eye. I don’t want to do anything these days. Watching a movie is too much effort. A book is a relief, but nothing sounds good. This even though I have half our local library sitting here next to me; I apparently believe I have a time machine and/or a robot maid to have the time to read them all. Emails, all deserving of a thoughtful reply, are beginning to stack up and mock me. I just want to get through the day and crawl into my nice warm bed. Welcome to winter indeed.
I’ve overextended myself in a terrible way lately. It’ll mostly be over this weekend, but my to-do list is a list of projects, not actually tasks needing to be accomplished. That I’m actually writing this surprises me. But the list of projects I need to do…finding new health insurance as soon as humanly possible because COBRA is ungodly expensive (and soon to expire), build my flute studio website (anyone know of a Squarespace for Overextended Idiots book?), work on the newsletter for a non-profit I’m involved with… All these and more need to be done toot suite, all require an immense amount of time, all gnaw on my psyche simply by existing. This on top of a heavy workload this week. I’ve taken on some freelance work as of late and this week has been intense. At the tail end of that intensity is the sinking realization that we’ve hit critical mass and I need to find a real job. One that has a ongoing paycheck and (the Holy Grail!) (Dream of Dreams!) (ZOMG!) health care benefits.
Usually I don’t hit this stage of winter until February, that most evil month. It’s a bit worrisome to have smacked into it a few weeks early. Oh, it’s nothing that a week on a beach couldn’t fix, but as the only beach available to me is covered in black ice, hmmm…no.
There are so many things I want and need to do and not a speck of enthusiasm for any of them. Damn winter. Damn overextendedness brought on by thinking I can do it all. Damn me. Damn damn damn.
I believe that is the sign I should crawl into my nice warm bed. Maybe with a book.
Or maybe not.