No Rest for Any of Us Anymore

Never not doing something.

Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

I am writing this late on a Saturday morning. Honestly? It’s got me stressed out.

You see, I normally wake up around 7 or 8 on the weekends — not because I want to, necessarily, but because after years of working from home, my body clock just wakes me up around then for “work.” Thanks, COVID.

And, after coming downstairs to enjoy breakfast, coffee, and a bit of doom scrolling Facebook, I generally get my writing done by around 10 or 10:30, when I go get my wife out of bed. She’s usually awake by then and has been doing her Duolingo or scrolling TikTok, and we usually share a bit of time before we come downstairs to start the day proper.

The cats get fed, she gets her tea and breakfast, and we relax for a bit before going about our day off. Usually by 11:30 or noon, all of the assorted morning tasks are done and we can go out and do something, or even just spend the day lazing on the couch if we need to.

Today, I woke up around 9:30. This was, to some degree, intentional. I have missed out on sleep for the past week for a variety of reasons, and I’ve been pretty exhausted all week. As such, I promised myself I’d sleep as late as my body would let me. Hell, I originally woke up at 6:40, but forced myself to sleep more because I knew that I needed it.

Now, it’s 11:30 and I am mildly freaking out because I haven’t done my writing. I’ve eaten, I’ve had coffee, and I’ve shared time with my wife, but I am just now sitting down to write, and it has thrown off the entire day.

You know, my entire rest day.

There is no reason for me to stress about this. I have all afternoon to get things done, and I don’t think we have any major plans until I go to play my D&D game this evening. That is several hours away, so there is loads of time to get anything done that needs doing.

We have a few chores to get done, but they’re all small — taking out the trash and the like. I might spend 30 whole minutes working on them, and that’s if I take my sweet time doing them.

I have to make dinner, but that’s not a terribly difficult thing. What we’re eating tonight could be a couple of things, and one of the options is leftovers…