Exhaustion finally got the best of me...I thought I'd just lay down for a bit...just rest my eyes and sleep completely overtook me...a bit of a parallel to my life...I've turned living into a job...constantly on watch for fear that if I let my guard down...I will have failed in my responsibilities....I don't even know what those responsibilities are anymore. And I couldn't keep going....I drifted off to sleep...
Then I have to ask...what are my responsibilities?...why do I equate living to responsibilities? I'm not talking about doing the laundry...washing the dishes and ordering my cats around...I'm talking about the day in and out...about what most people do for enjoyment and I have turned into employment.
Each day is filled with a list of what "has" to be done. Although my "tasks" give me a sense of satisfaction, I often feel nothing more than just that...I wonder when it was that I last felt sheer pleasure...enjoyment just for the sake of enjoyment...the peacefulness that comes from starting something and following it to completion...not even stopping to think about all the details...the structure...the "to-do" list. Or have I ever actually felt that....
I wonder if I am capable of doing this...I wonder if I've ever done it...I see pictures of myself at certain moments, and I think...I must have just enjoyed that moment because I don't remember everything that happened. Today...a person I was training to do my job...asked how I remember everything I do...all the facts and figures and I replied, "I always want to be one step ahead of the game." But...I thought about it tonight...if I'm one step ahead of the game...I'm not playing it...I'm not enjoying it...I'm not really risking anything...
Then the guilt sets in...if I let my guard down...I might drift to sleep and miss it completely...or maybe that's what I've needed for so long...to drift away...stop worrying...stop trying to be the quarterback in a game that was just supposed to be flag football on a Sunday afternoon with friends. Maybe it's time to put down my gun....let my head fall back ....my eyes close...and give someone else the wheel...
Maybe I just need rest...release...to rejuvenate and not fear so much that I am falling asleep on the job...
That's exactly why I woke at 3 AM and could not go back to sleep and just wrote a staff memo! Very glad I decided to see if you had posted and wow! Was it right on! Now maybe I can sleep..so thanks..hope you went back to sleep after you posted.
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I have become painfully aware that I feel responsible for everyone and everything....I have lost the ability to enjoy myself...If I'm not trying to fix everything...I'm apologizing because I have "failed" to fix something...I do too much and for what purpose?...who's life becomes so much better because I spend extra hours working for them?....Yes, there are moments that my extra efforts make their difference...but on the whole...no one knows...and then I am hurt and angry because no one "noticed." This needs to stop in my life...it is getting me nowhere and I am buried in my life...I am alone and at risk of living that way until I die...there is only so much that I can be thanked for...only so much that will change things....am I a sacrificial lamb or am I just a good person who opts for doing the best I can and still lives life...these are the questions I have to answer...I'm asking them...but it's time to answer...time to quite burying myself so that I hide from what I really want...the very simple things that would make me truly happy...I can't change the world...but I can change mine...
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