The Night Before Work
Day 13.
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Today is my last unplanned day off. Tomorrow I’ll work. It’ll be a light day, and short.
One of the things I’ve realized while being off is that I hate my job. I’m not social and the last couple weeks of basically being alone have reminded me how uninterested in being artificially social I am. I like people. I like spending time with people. I don’t like being alone. But having to meet new people, often multiple times daily, and pretend that I’m anything other than anxious and uncomfortable has always been really hard for me. When I first started the job, it was a source of pretty strong anxiety. But I made some friends, had some really fun students, and countless lessons that were pure joys. But the job. It is not difficult. There’s no heavy lifting or late nights. But it’s stressful as hell for me. And the idea of going back (not back to work, but back to it) is distasteful.
So, as I reassess my life and my plans now that I’m alone, I will put serious thought into this, too. Sometime before the end of the year, hopefully sooner, I’ll start looking for something else to do. But first, I need to continue recovering; see if recovery is even possible. We should tend to the bleeding patient before getting to the one with diarrhea.
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Today, like yesterday, I spent some time with my soon-to-depart Aussie friend – and a couple mutual friends who joined us. It was a gorgeous day, overcast and slightly chilly. Afterward, I headed back home and watched time pass before, once again, coming to this Starbucks to do some work from my second job.
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I mark the time, each evening, between when my dad likely died and I received the call – something like 9:07 to 9:25pm – thinking about him. Today, I didn’t cry – not yet, at least. I just became misty. I’m still extremely sad (the source of more than a little anxiety as I don’t want to cry at work), but maybe I’ve achieved a sort of stasis: the sadness seems to have evolved from overpowering, to merely ever-present. And I’m able to think of him and smile more. This always leads to tears, sometimes to outright crying, but first I’m able to smile, sometimes laugh.
This, while natural, is also a source of guilt.
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The Astros won again, in a game that was on when I awoke, 5.5 hours after I fell asleep (~40 minutes after I intended to try to wake up). That helped start the day on a positive note.
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I can’t really recall last night. I walked home for about 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours, listening to some funny podcasts, trying not to think. I can’t recall if being home was particularly awful or normal, but I do know I arrived home too early, with too much energy remaining. At some point the lack of sleep will start to cause damage. Perhaps it already has.
I did cut my hair before showering. That needed doing and is done.
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At the party yesterday, I munched on food the whole time, partly because that’s what I do, partly because the foods were good (lotsa cheese), partly because I’d taken another Tramadol and wanted to remain upright, and partly because of whatever other reasons apply. As a result, I gained a little weight.
But I also focused on drinking more water. My new scale also provides a “total body water” (TBW) measurement, which shows daily that I am insufficiently hydrated. I suspect that, even tho this percentage increased today, it was actually the food that caused the slight uptick in weight, not the water. But maybe?
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Out of the blue, shit like this happens: I just updated my “For You” musical tastes in Apple Music. A playlist was created for me. I’ve been listening to it. A Nick Cave song starts playing. This causes me to think of his song “Into My Arms”. Then, I remember that it plays in the magnificent movie “The Zero Effect”. Then, that my friends and I played that for my movie on one of my birthdays. And that my father came and watched it with us. And that he also loved it. And we talked a little about it afterward, before we all headed back to our respective homes. And now I’m trying not to god damned cry in this god damned Starbucks.
(There will come a point when I avoid this place because of how much it reminds me of this time and these experiences.)
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“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” –Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
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As is customary, I’ll walk home in about an hour. I’ll try harder to exhaust myself than I did last night.
13 days have come and gone and he’s still gone.
終