Tired

A quick glance at some of the synonyms for "tired" reveals that there are lots of ways to say "I feel lacking in energy." I suspect it's a common human experience to be fatigued, worn out, whacked, flagging and bushed. It's certainly a common experience for me. I was reflecting the other day that I genuinely can't remember what it feels like to be refreshed, to feel not-weary. I wake up tired, spend the day in a state of tiredness and at some point in the evening am so tired that I can no longer do anything but go to bed. There isn't (I am fairly sure) any point of the day when, given some peace and a modicum of comfort, I couldn't easily fall asleep. I don't even need the peace and comfort - I've fallen asleep on a bus at 9 o'clock in the morning. So saying "I'm tired" doesn't really mean anything any more; it's as informative as "I'm breathing" or "I exist" - true, but generally able to be taken as read.

So when, as last night, I'm woken up at 2am by a vomiting child, how do I choose an appropriate synonym to describe my state at 10pm the following evening? I'm not sure that there's a single word or simple phrase that conveys the sensation of my head being both light and heavy, of my synapses being cotton-wool-balled to slowness; the effort of will to lift each leaden leg in turn up the stairs; eyes that burn until I close them and then burn until I open them; the disquiet of a noise that I can't hear distractingly invading my middle ear. Which word can convey the sense that there is so much to do, so much that will not be done, that tomorrow lurks only a few hours away with its own cargo of deeds and requirements and that sleep, sleep, no matter if it be brief or deep, will not, cannot hope to be enough?

Real life

For the last week I've been meaning to post something about how astonishingly busy I've been. I expect it would have been a lighthearted look at how many different things I'd been involved with, with a serious undercurrent to make the reader think "Hey, this guy really is incredibly busy."

Unfortunately I haven't. And the not very lighthearted reason is that I've been busy, tired, and procrastinating. When I used to be employed full time - especially in the months before the NHS and I parted company - I imagined what life would be like when I was having to do all kinds of things to try and raise money/get people off our backs about debts. In my imagination I would get up early, work hard all day, and then when evening came and my loving wife and family beckoned me to come sit with them and maybe watch a movie, I'd ruefully but resolutely smile and explain that no, I had some more work to do.

Reality (as is often the case) is somewhat different. Yes, I do get up early. Yes, I try and work hard to get some money. But I don't work hard enough or for long enough to get sufficient money to stop the graph on the household budget looking like the advanced slopes at St Moritz. Because in real life there are lots of other things that need doing, where a smiling refusal doesn't make any difference. And come the evening, frankly I'm so exhausted that I've hit the settee before you can say "Why don't you come and sit down?"

Part of wanting to be a writer is the discipline of writing when I don't want to, or when I'm tired, or when there's too much else on. This blog ought to have daily entries, except in extremely unusual circumstances. Right now, I need to get my act together.

Things to do

Things I need to do: finish the bathroom, mend the hole in the hall ceiling, sort out the heating and hot water, sleep more, get some exercise, eat properly, help look after children, help get the house ready for Christmas, move Rachel's room around.

Things I want to do: finish the bathroom, mend the hole in the hall ceiling, sort out the heating and hot water, sleep more, get some exercise, eat properly, help look after children, help get the house ready for Christmas, move Rachel's room around.

Shrove Tuesday (2)

Because our children are scattered all over the place doing various activities on Tuesday evenings, I got up at 6.15am so that everyone could have pancakes for breakfast. Do I like being a dad? Absolutely. Do I wish it didn't involve being quite so tired? Oooh yes.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear

I managed to have a genuinely psychotic experiene the other day: I was driving along when I saw a silver Espace pulling out of a junction ahead. Often when I see this I forget that we only have one car, and I think "Oh, there's Katrina" (usually followed by looking to see if it actually is her, then remembering that in fact I'm in the Espace). On this occasion though I clearly remembered that we only have one car, because I saw the other vehicle and my first thought was "Oh, there's me."

I offer no excuse for this (though I was tired, distracted, etc, etc).

Monday morning

I'm struggling to stay awake this morning, even worse than the average Monday. It wasn't that long after midnight that I went to bed, but the 6:30am alarm interrupted a really bizarre dream, and I felt as though I hadn't slept that well. Still, we did win the quiz again (quite a common occurence these days - we're becoming the new Monkey Tennis), partly due to James coming to join us. It's a good feeling to be part of this little group who get together on Sundays. Realised last night that we're not going to be there next Sunday because we'll be with Rachel at the Fonteyn Nureyev Young Dancers Competition. I'd totally lost track of the fact that that is next Sunday. Mind you, I seem to be temporally disorientated at the moment anyway: having remembered that we're not here next Sunday evening, I then spent five minutes worrying about who was going to do what at Conversation, until it occured to me that that is on the third Sunday of the month - and earlier I'd told several people that I'd left decorations up past Twelfth Night because I spent several hours believing that it was the 7th January yesterday.
Perhaps I should go and work in Japan.

Tired

I went to bed at 11.30 last night. I got up at 6.30 this morning, went back to bed at 9.00 and slept until midday. I then dozed some more until about 1.30 when I reluctantly got up. I'm still tired.

Well I haven't been here for a while

Bah. I am so tired, I am flicking through Facebook pages without any clear idea of what I think I'm doing there. I can't go to bed for at least another hour because I have to pick up Daniel from Emfest at about 11pm, and then go up to Park Gate to bring Benjamin and Reuben home from roleplaying. Bah, bah and bah again.

On the other hand, I'm 90% sure that I want to train as a plumber with these people after their rep came to see me today. I need to do a bit more checking out about whether it is as good as they say, but it looks as though I might be able to change career.

Overwhelmed

I've got so much to do, and so little time. I just feel utterly overwhelmed at the thought of all the stuff I've got to get done before we go on holiday in three weeks time; work stuff (really urgent or else I'm going to be in BIG trouble), home stuff (kind of essential or else we won't be able to go on holiday/won't have any clothes to go in/won't have anyone to look after pets/etc/etc), Open University stuff (will fail the course unless I catch up with the three units I'm behind and get my TMA done before we leave).

OK. Deep breath. Less timewasting, more organisation, less blogging and general online stuff, more work.

Slippery thoughts

Two late nights in a row and I'm discovering an unfortunate side-effect of not enough sleep: thoughts become increasingly slippery. I went to bed late on Saturday night because I was playing The Sims and by the time I went upstairs Katrina was asleep and so I just said very quick and quiet prayers and (ahem) skipped reading the Bible. Then last night Katrina was playing The Sims and I was so determined not to miss out on sharing Bible reading and prayers that I stayed awake and so today I'm suffering from an inability to sit in warm rooms reading dull documents for more than 23 seconds without falling asleep. Nothing terribly unusual there, but the sad (for me at least) thing is that I had an insightful and original thought at some time today when I was nowhere near a computer or even a pencil and paper, but I said to myself "It's OK, I will remember this thought, because it is a Thought of Beauty and Originality, and will not just disappear." How wrong I was. I can remember having the thought, but the content of it, in all its clarity and profundity, is lurking at the back of my mind, and the more I try to get hold of it, the harder it is to grasp, so I must accept the fact that it is gone forever.

On the other hand it probably wasn't that amazing, while on the other Dave Sharps did a great talk at Celebration last night, based on Psalm 23:6 where he spoke about "the pursuing God": God who unfailingly, passionately pursues us in order to bless us. Good stuff.

Simplification of wishes

Earlier on today I was in WHSmith looking at a Linux magazine and wondering whether to spend £6.50 to get the new Ubuntu distro that was included with it, and thinking to myself that I really would like to learn how to be proficient in using Linux, when it occured to me that I have a full time job, a wife and five children, an Open University module starting soon and I want to brush up on my Italian before our summer holiday, plus I bought a video camera for Christmas that I don't really know how to use properly and I want to work out what to do with the editing software. I don't really have enough time for all the things I want to do, let alone anything else. So I didn't buy the magazine. And our computers will continue to run on Windows. For the time being...

Thirtysomething

Today is my last day of being thirtyanything; I don't feel quite as bad as I did but I'm still feeling kind of hopeless and what's-the-pointish. I'm at work today, having had two days off with stomach cramps and diarrhoea, and I'm looking at all the various stuff I've got to do and thinking how little I care about it. I'm sure that I can talk myself into seeing that doing these things will be useful for someone; it's just that my main (or only) motivation is to not get sacked because we need the money. I'm not sure how long it's possible to sustain working in a job that (a) I don't care about and (b) makes me feel physically sick with anxiety when I come into the building. I had a plan to try and earn money from creative writing, and once I had found someone who would pay me, to give up some hours in this job to have more time to write, etc; unfortunately I'm too busy/tired/miserable to get on with the writing, meaning that that plan may be a non-starter.

I'm going to see a hypnotherapist on Friday, who was recommended by my chiropractor; we'll see if his optimism is justified - he reckons he can have me feeling more positive in 5 or 6 sessions. Maybe just getting past the 40 barrier tomorrow will help; I've got a list of things I'd like to achieve, though I'm struggling to believe that I'll ever turn them from "things I'd like to do" to "things I've done".

40

So now I'm counting the days I have left: 20 days (including today) of being thirtysomething. This is the first birthday I've ever had that I've not wanted to celebrate. I wasn't looking forward much to 30, but I had a party (probably the first successful party I ever organised) and in the end it was OK. But now it feels as though my life is ending. I know that this is partly because I'm feeling a bit miserable, and I know that plenty of people have achieved things when they're older than 40 - I am, by the way, finding it increasingly hard not to slap people who say "Life begins at 40" - and I'm sure that the day after my birthday I'll wake up and do exactly the same things as I did the day before my birthday, but nonetheless I can't help feeling that that's it: life is over, from now on it's simply existing. I'm not likely to start a new career, despite the fact that I have longer to work before 65 than I have worked since I was 18; I'll continue to be adequate at some things, but I'm unlikely now to ever excel in anything; all the aches and pains I have now will most likely either continue or get worse, rather than improve or disappear; my thoughts about God's plan for my life are complex but usually come down to an assumption that he wants me to just do the best I can, where I am, with what I've got and I'm not doing very well so far.

Friday tired

4.30 on Friday - time to go home, put feet up and relax for the weekend. Or not, as the case may be. Bursledon Players have their next production coming up (directed yet again by me) - tickets available here - so tomorrow is set building all day, then technical rehearsal all Sunday afternoon. Yet again I've had to ask the ever-helpful Mike Andrews at Lite Relief if we can have lights etc at short notice - to his credit, when I asked him on a Friday evening as he was driving back from a job in Oxford, he promised to see me at the warehouse at 9.30 on Saturday morning. I'm out praying with John tonight, it's Cathy's birthday party tomorrow evening (a masked ball for which I don't yet have a mask), and what with church Sunday morning (plus Celebration in the evening) and going to the Fox and Hounds quiz, I'm wondering when on earth I'm going to get the usual 5+ loads of washing done so that children have clean school uniforms etc. I'll be shattered by Monday.

Now I know that this is all voluntary and mostly pleasurable, and that there are a lot of people who don't have leisure time to anywhere near the extent that I do, but nonetheless it's not a great feeling to be finishing work for the week, feeling tired, and knowing that it's going to be non-stop until Monday when I'm back at work again (and giving a presentation on the Local Government White Paper that I haven't even thought about yet).