February 21, 2009

grey paste

Aparently it's been a while since I've updated.

I'm not really keeping track anymore. It feels like fighting the current; trying to keep track of time. One day bleeds in to the next rediculous day, one hazard into another catastrophy, one mess into another, with a triumph thrown in here and there. One suprise after another.

I can't keep track of the days anymore, because things don't make sense. they fall from the sky like oil sludge in the commercials, one coating the remnants of the last, and I'm still trying to clean myself up, over and over.

I hit another wall this weekend, when I got to the mall, and the volunteers that were supposed to be there selling tickets weren't, and I got an email from my wonderful student that she was sick (probably from burn out). I hit a wall, and I realized, this is my life now.

Grey paste.

Not boring grey paste, but grey in that all the colours have just swirled together with all the snow, and all that's left, from something that was once vibrant and spicy, and flashy and brite, and mixes and mixes to grey... I can't get excited about it, only scared, but almost run in, like I got blended in with the colour, and now I'm grey paste too.

I feel like grey paste, that's for damned sure.

I'm not sure how to un-meld the colours, but I'm sure it has something to do with finding those little spashes of red and blue and gold and orange and yellow and picking them up, starting again. But that sludge keeps falling, mixing it all back.

I'm getting buried here, people.

The thing with volunteers, the good and the bad, is that there's no obligation. there's nothing contractual or financial or really... there's nothing keeping them there. there's nothing forcing them or tempting them to show up for their duties. But, for some reason, there is for me. This stupid moral obligation. I don't know why, I don't know where it comes from

I know they're not paying me for this.

I can't just say "the hell with it" until can't became didn't want to but had to today. I couldn't do it any more. I ran out like sand in a little glass timer. I don't want that timer to fall and break, and I don't want the sand to fall out, because I'll never get it back, and I can't lose that motivation and moral drive, because where will I be then?

Grey Paste.

I'm cold and tired. I can't get warm, I can't sleep. Insomnia just keeps kicking me when I feel tired enough to sleep and I start obsessing. One thing at a time, but you list the things, over and over and over in your head and think... I could do that now, then there'd be one less thing. I can't do that now, but I might not get to it tomorrow, so there's another thing for another day... I can't even get through one day without the list spilling over and over like water in the bulkheads of the titanic and I can feel myself sinking and getting colder and colder.

I wonder how many souls I'd take? Which would be my own? Do boats have souls?

These are the things you'd ask yourself too, at three oclock in the morning with the cat dozing on your chest as you stare at the ceiling listing and thinking and praying for sleep. And then when sleep does come, you cling to it for your life, begging for one more minute, one more hour and why couldn't I sleep sooner? I love sleep?

But you have to get up. I can't keep up my house anymore, because even though I come home from work feeling like I've taken one step ahead and 3 leaps back, feeling like I haven't accomplished anything more than creating more work, I'm so exhausted I manage to lie down and let my back spasm to silence then I open my eyes and it's midnight and the cycle starts again... I can't keep up my house because I can't sleep unless it's not a good time to sleep. I have no clean socks, and no dishes, and I haven't vacuumed and there are kleenexes on the floor. I need to train the cat to mop.

I need a hand. Or six more.

And there's nothing I can do to stop it right now. There's no more hours left, and there's nothing in my muscles, no juice left, no spinich to pump me up. I can't move more than I already do. So for now, there are no dishes. I psych myself up on the drive home to get cleaned up so I can have people over for breakfast or something, and yet, nothing. nothing happens.

Grey paste.

But really, I'm ok. I'm not really sad or upset. I'm not happy, either, really, and I'm certainly not mad. I'm totally apathetic to it all, because I have to be. If I let the emotion out like Adam wants me to, I'll cry and cry and scream and hit until there's nothing left, but that would solve nothing. That doesn't clear my desk or scrub my bathroom.

I just need more energy. I need a top up of a whole other nature than a 15 hour marathon nap.

I need a re-fill.

Something other than grey paste, please.

3 comments:

M Althauser said...

*hugs* Love you Sparky... give me a call if you ever need to talk, or just want to rant and vent a bit. =) Or email me and tell me "hey! gimme a call!". <3

J.D said...

Baby steps? Pick one thing from your To-Do list, and just do that one thing, even if it's just cleaning your desk or cleaning the bathroom. One thing at a time - even one thing a day. I know I've been in a funk similar to yours for a while now and sometimes even getting that one thing done helps a little - even if it's small.

Or, if you can wait until I'm done school, I'll come up for a visit and ninja everything into a state of organization. Because I'm an organizing ninja, and that's what we do.

Usually. Unless we're in school, and then everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Want me to save you a seat? I'll be bringing cookies . . .

Ginny said...

The thing is, and they keep tell us teachers this too, it's just a job. Don't let it be your life. You work 9-5, that's what you work. Nothing more. Everything CAN wait, and it it can't, it can wait until the next day.

It's not your life. Remember that.