Worked Through, Worked Out, & Worked Over

Have you ever been too tired to care?
Yeah?
Well just think of me as there.

Riding home from work today, I just realized what the actual date is. It's not like I don't write it on the board 5 days a week; it's that I don't identify with it. The days of the week don't exist. When at work it's about the day it is in the rotation: A-day or B-day. Break that down even further & it's about hard or easy. A=hard, of course. B=easier. There aren't fewer challenges on B-day, but fewer kids & more time to attempt to crawl out from under the piles of papers to be graded, ideas for units/themes/lessons, parent emails, phone calls that need to be made...1 more kid to help. I realize part of the pressure, if not most of it, is my own standard of excellence pressing down on my own neck. But it's not just me; we're all a 1/2 a step away from mania reaching for meds.

As the calendar has faded to black, & I look more & more forward to the dark & silent mornings that start my days for peace, there are some things that have become gorillas in the mist. The orange light indicating voice mails on the land line has been blinking for no less than 2 weeks. When I come home, I don't even care who's in my missed calls because I don't have time nor energy to call them back. I hope none of those messages are dire. My turtle's every other day feeding schedule got tripped up somewhere & after skipping 2 days, due to absentmindedness, I doubled up & now I'm not sure if he's been over-fed & lay off for a day or stick with where I think I am? *shrugs* I made an entire bag of potstickers & some string beans so that if I can't fix dinner, there's still something to pluck from for lunch. I've neglected to iron 2 shirts for work & have to work around my error each morning as I reach for them with no time for ironing. I seem to have misplaced a very important part of 1 of my deadlines somewhere between work & home. My desk looks as if it's been swallowed home by a paper monster. My vitamins were prepped but are still on the kitchen counter, Day what now? I haven't exercised since Labor Day weekend & I only know that because that's when the unfortunate toe incident occurred. I keep forgetting to get a leave slip for a trip I'm taking soon & I've forgotten to collect the message with the number to the contact for the field trip I've been planning...for about 2 weeks. & to top it all off, as I drove home today I realized what today's real date is & that I've missed the birthday of someone very special...again.

In truth (summa his phraseology), I've been home for 90 minutes & I'm still wearing my sweater & my scarf. Actually, I haven't changed out of any of my work clothes, but I have warmed up some Thai from the other day, identified that the thawed fish in the fridge ain't gon' hold another day, discovered that I over-paid my electric bill & get a break on the next 1, told a friend he could crash here tomorrow night when he gets in town, & recognized I'm workin' with a sweet tooth tonight. Oh...& typed this.

I'm taking a break from this aspect of my life in about 2 weeks. I'm going to get on a plane, breathe some different (though familiar) air, see some ever-smiling faces, plant a couple kisses on cheeks, get love from a very special little girl & perhaps catch the birth of the newest member of my fam. I'm going to try to avoid taking anything that looks as if it was made from trees, & I'm going to try to avoid anyone calling me by my last name. With each passing day I'm becoming less of my first name & more of my prefix + last. I feel like I'm living the movie Eraser & I'll only be a ghost of my former self. The make & model that sent birthday cards down to a delivery science has apparently been off the market for a few years now. She's missed.

It's not that I no longer care about the important things. I'm caring for too many things all at once, leaving me a Jack of Cares, Master of None. Something's gotta give. Searching for what that thing is.

Watch me move.