"Long day," I said as we sat in the fading light, talking.
He nodded.
"Feels like three," I added.
"Three in the morning?"
"Three days."
He nodded again.
Life was short but the days were long.
I rose somewhere close to six that morning and started working in hopes of having the content we needed to ease the conference call scheduled later that morning. The spreadsheet was large, cumbersome and complex. As the files processed, I changed the sheets on my bed and started laundry. Checked on the files. Hung dresses. Got back to work.
Files went out three minutes before the call. I was the last to dial in, but nobody seemed to mind. A second call and a third followed. I chopped and sautéed vegetables and threw them in with the beans I had soaked overnight, started the dishwasher, kept working.
At three in the afternoon, nine hours after starting, I was still working on the files discussed on the call plus a half dozen more. At three in the afternoon, nine hours after starting, I still wore my pajamas.
Plans for the afternoon shifted and shifted again. I changed out of my pajamas and walked the grocery store in the thick, still day, heavy with humidity. I made supper. I cleaned, watched a frightening film and then a light one to clear my brain. I wrote a story and another one. I turned in and spent the night fighting monsters. Nightmares.
"What are you doing this weekend?" a friend had asked in the pajama-clad hours.
"Not much," I replied, listing a few things and then a few more. "Mostly slacking."
"That's not slacking," she said.
"I don't know how to slack."
For as long as I could remember, I kept myself busy. I think I knew something was wrong with me and felt myself racing against time. With the diagnosis, my life grew even more hectic as I struggled to do things when I could, when I had energy because I knew it soon faded, but doing more gave me more energy.
"Objects in motion," I remembered, thinking of Newton's three laws.
Even "at rest," I tend to think. To not think and meditate. To focus on being present. I throw myself fully into the things I am doing and the world around me, even when fighting monsters throughout the night.
Every day, in a million ways, I grow more aware of the world around me, the people, places and things. Flowers growing in my neighbors' yards. A Buddha on a balcony. A squirrel on a line. I think of the stories behind them and the stories yet to be lived. I watch, listen and feel, and that is probably the real reason the days seem so long - three days in one! I live them. I feel them in every fiber of my being.
It's delightfully exhausting.
Tag:
Work Life