Is anyone (or everyone) else exhausted?

I’ve really struggled to get out of bed each and every morning this week. Today I eventually forced myself out of my flannelette sheets and mindlessly staggered about my morning ablutions, got dressed and so forth and at one point looked at my bathtub, complete with four new library books stacked beside it, and almost cried.

My desire to NOT go to work and just stay home and lie in the bath and read was overwhelming.

“I need a holiday,” I thought. Until I reminded myself that last week I started a new / different (variation on my old) job making time off in the near future more difficult. The new role (a promotion in status, though not more money) means I’ve had to give up my four-day working weeks for the 3-month trial period, though I did manage to negotiate a nine-day fortnight – taking every second Monday off.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not actually in a funk. In fact, my most-recent diet blog post was about how mentally healthy I feel at the moment.

However, two posts by other bloggers / authors in the last week have me thinking that I may just be a tad stressed.

Darla, writing for A Weight Lifted talked about stress and self-care. I was reminded that stress can result in more than binge-eating (my worst habit!). It can manifest itself in a myriad of different ways – even for normal people (!!!). Reading that post and thinking about life in general, made me realise that I AM struggling at the moment.

Never fear, I’m not about to have some sort of breakdown; but for me stress causes me to temporarily split into two different personalities. Firstly, I become incredibly apathetic (yes, more than usual!). I become hamstrung. Unable to do or achieve anything.

Outside of work, that is.

 

Bizarrely, I am quite capable of going about my normal working life. In fact I mostly thrive in the work environment and become very driven – but then arrive home each day and flounder.

I recently mentioned that I felt like I was ‘falling behind’ and wondered if others have problems processing stuff because they don’t have enough ‘headspace’. From the comments I received it was obvious that people could relate. And that’s pretty much where I’m at.

Work is still uncertain with government cutbacks (I will either have no job or too many jobs – it’s a long convoluted story that’s too difficult to go into!) and we finally laid my dad’s ashes to rest last weekend after 8 ½ months. (But that’s also a whole other story.)

My ‘to-do’ list is growing. Much of it has to do with my blogging; although it’s manifesting itself in ‘undone’ things around my apartment. My fridge has been practically-empty for a month now. Much-hated grocery shopping is even more sporadic typified by last-minute smash and grab forays while forgetting almost everything I need.

In her The Happiness Project blog Gretchen Rubin recently talked about ‘outer order being required for inner order’. I’ve never been a fan of this concept, as I don’t believe I’m a naturally tidy person. In fact, I’m pro-dishevelment!

However, although my work and home desks may be messy and my walk-in wardrobe floor is strewn with briefly-worn clothing; I like my public living spaces clean and clear. I hate clutter and hate having crap on tables or dishes on the sink (I NEVER leave washing-up undone – it causes me too much angst!).

However, when I’m stressed, overwhelmed or overcome with apathy; my outer world starts getting disorderly. I don’t want to shop; I don’t want to cook; and I don’t want to deal with dirty washing. And that’s disturbing. And I’m realising that it IS like Gretchen says, my messy outer world is impacting on my inner world. It’s like a vicious cycle – one impacting the other, impacting the other. And so forth. And then, basically, I’m screwed.

I realise a lot of these tasks are mundane ones requiring little cognitive effort. But, I become preoccupied with the ‘things I haven’t done’ and the things I need to do – requiring some thought – just get pushed aside.

I’m not likely to get a holiday anytime soon to give me sufficient headspace to compartmentalise everything that’s happening in my life; but I think I need to start a SENSIBLE ‘to do’ list and prioritise the crap I need to do about the place (and yes, that includes grocery shopping and tidying up my paperwork) as well as the scarier blog-related work (I need to prepare a media kit for my blog/s if monetisation is ever going to be an option; plus I’ve put off some decisions I need to make because, well… because I just can’t think about them!).

I’ve already started to think sensibly about what’s achievable and what isn’t (having already ditched the daily posting in this blog – although admitting defeat on that score was hard). I know that – to many outside of that world – carving off time to write or blog would seem like an insignificant issue, not worthy of such angst – but, it’s become part of who I am and it’s a commitment I made to myself. I feel like I’m letting myself down by not doing what I’ve planned. And frankly, I deserve better than that.

Can anyone relate?