A week in my life

It’s hard to know what day to start with, because, well, I have a fucked-up life schedule. Let’s start with Tuesday.

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Tuesday:

Wake up at 5am so I can get on the bus to get to BART to get to Amtrak to get to the Light Rail to get to my day job by 9am. Sometimes I try napping on the train, but half of time that doesn’t work, even when I’m tired, because I’ve already been awake and on the go for a couple hours by then. Once I’m at work, I have to spend a bit playing email catch-up, as this is the first time I’ve been at the job since last Wednesday. Oh, and I’m pretty tired usually, consuming coffee and energy drinks to start physically up — which is crap for mental work.

Then I go to Jerry’s place where sometimes we playstorm a game, but lately I’ve been to tired to. Luckily, he’s cool with that, and Justin comes up and he and I smoke cigars and drink scotch for a bit so that I might unwind. But still, Tuesday night is always a write-off.

Wednesday:

I wake up and grab a shower after Jerry’s done. Then I take the bus in with him to work, since we both work downtown. Now, I’ve usually gotten a good night’s sleep at his place, so Wednesdays are more productive. Even so, having to get a lot done on one day is very high-contact, leaving me worn out at the end of the work day. Then I get on the Light Rail to get on the Amtrak to get on the Bart to get on the bus home. After that, I have to choose between attempting to catch up on all my other jobs, hang out with friends that invite me to something, or (you know) sleep. The first option generally requires me to have energy, which I don’t by then. But I still feel guilty for picking the second over the first. And sometimes that guilt just turns into my picking sleep.

Thursday:

Hey, I don’t have to travel! Awesome! But it’s like a Monday, because I have to recover from not being very available the two days prior. All catch-up that day. And playing catch-up for a number of people is tiring. So I don’t get much writing done.

Friday: 

Fridays are the weird one, because it’s both Friday for everyone else, and Tuesday for me. Since I spend a lot of time working out of coffee shops and the like (in order to attempt to keep my home from feeling like a place of stress), I am affected by the comings and goings of others. Friday means people get off of work early or, at the very least, go out to play. For catch-up work and the like, that’s not a problem, but it has caused the day to be more of a write-off creatively.

Saturday:

I haven’t had a Saturday in some time that hasn’t had a social engagement (or a convention), and I find I like that. I’m a social guy. Saturdays are when I’m allowed to not work so much, damnit! (He says, having worked a lot yesterday morning while everyone else was gaming at the minicon.)

Because of con season, I haven’t done the “write Saturday morning” thing that I wanted to start doing. I suspect soon that will change.

Also, I should go to the farmer’s market down the street more often. I think I hit it once every three weeks or so.

Sunday:

Sundays tend to be work days, but I only might work 6-8 hours on a Sunday. Sometimes as few as 4, if I swear to make up for it on the train Tuesday & Wednesday or something. Because things still happen on Sundays, and those are nice days for walking. (Or I’m dealing with a convention, in which case my week is so, so fucked anyway.) If I do get writing done that week, it’s on a Sunday.

Monday:

Oh, god, Monday. Monday is “everyone is back from their weekend so I have to catch-up on crap” day *and* it’s the day before my “other weekend.” So, it’s busy and cramped and hellish. I hate Mondays. I tend to work until at least 10 at night, sometimes later, just to get stuff done. No creative work gets done on Mondays. And I have to wake up at 5, so I’m a wreck. I fucking hate Mondays for a truly legitimate reason.

—

That’s my week. That’s why I’m leaving my state job. For the last two months, creative work has been shoved aside for maintenance work and for lack of energy. I’m not one to give power to the idea of writer’s block by saying I have it, but if writer’s block is about not having enough mental/emotional bandwidth to be awesome on the page, well fuck it, I’m there. And I’m done with that. I want that ability back. So I’m taking the leap. I know that when I have a saner schedule and am not constantly traveling, the words will flow. They did before, when I wasn’t working insane hours.

Why did I do this to myself? Because I did the math on the number of work hours and traveling and all that and thought I could hack it. And I did…for a few months. The painful realization I’m making — in my heart, since I’ve known it *intellectually* for years — is that I’m not a machine, and I should treat not myself as such.

(That said, I don’t resent my day job. I am just realizing that I need to leave it. Hell, I can’t resent the thing that made this new life possible, you know? My boss and I talked, and we’re pretty cool with it. He’s an understanding guy, and I’ve been more than lucky to have him as an ally in this life.)

- Ryan

  1. lifeofmack posted this