3rd House Journal: Busy work

[Gathering the last pollen of the season; 11/3/11]

At this time on a normal Friday night, I am rushing around primping and packing for D's arrival as he comes to whisk me away into the city for the weekend, or I am rushing around primping and making dinner if we're staying at my place (or skip the "making dinner" part if pressed for time and substitute going out around here). Tonight, D's away on his annual guys' trip to Florida, so I stayed late at work, picked up take-out, and I'm facing a busy weekend of cleaning, errands, working on my professional certificate, and trying to make more headway for my work deadline next week. I deeply resent overtime work (unpaid as I'm salaried) given that I work plenty hard during regular hours, but if it'll reduce my anxieties come Monday, I'll kick in a few hours this weekend.

It's been an exhausting week, working while sick with a cold, but it's almost always exhausting anyway. My time for myself, not counting all the maintenance of eating, sleeping, bathing, laundry, etc., is limited and being ill ups the maintenance part while work demands eat at the other end. You could say my weekends with D also take my time, but it's restorative. Packing up and being in the city with D for the weekend is a vacation for me, though I'll admit I'm happy to take full advantage of his late-sleeping habit to get a couple of hours to myself in the morning.

Is all work like this now? Is everyone pushed to the brink? People feel lucky to have jobs at all, whether or not they're burned out or otherwise unhappy and desiring to move on. Our company is lucky to have some new client work coming in, after having to lay people off a few weeks ago. It's discouraging - the market is tight, and we all wait for things to improve, but it seems a long time to come.

But, it is the weekend. And a weekend with an extra hour in it, too. Don't forget to set your clocks back an hour on Saturday night!