My partner is sleeping quietly in the next room. She told me to wake her by 10 if she didn’t stir on her own, but I can’t do that. She isn’t 100% so I’m going to give her a few more minutes to get right. 4 more minutes to be exact. It isn’t much, but it also isn’t so much that I’ve made her feel rushed to get to the rest of her day. Being rushed and overwhelmed seems to be a condition of life for us both lately. Between an onslaught of classes, grading, and the rigors of raising our kids it can be hard to carve out time to keep ourselves balanced.
I’m teetering on the edge of illness. I feel it swirling around me like a crow circling the road after a car has made short work of a squirrel. The sick is simply waiting for a chance to land. Meanwhile I am fighting it with all of the vitamins I can. I’m not resting. I don’t have time for that. I have always wondered about that statement–having time. I recognize that I find time to play a video game every so often or find time to watch two hours of TV. Why then can’t I find time to sleep? That is a matter of priority. I place more value on those other activities than I do on the act of resting my bones. I feel like watching shows and playing games helps me mentally. It is an escape from the rigors of daily life to the point where it has become my dessert for daily life. However, on those days when I should be home working and catching up, it can become the main course. This is why I need to find a way to balance myself.
Mondays are a good opportunity to reflect because they represent the start of the week for me. Today I plan to dive into that pile of grading, work with my students, and try to create a plan for the week that offers a bit more balance than the see saw tilt that has come to define my days and nights and finds me on the verge of sickness and finds my partner still slumbering.
But later. I have to wake her up now.