Long Weekends

Last updated on November 26, 2023

Some weekends are long, even when they technically aren’t that bad. They just seem to pass slowly, while I get nothing accomplished.

We have a bathroom to finish. It’s tiled, almost. It is usable. But unfinished.

I don’t know why I am so exhausted by the weekends, but I am. It is playing normal drains me that so much that I need to decompress and can’t. I have to be normal around so many people lately, and I’m doing it so poorly, that I’m frustrated and exhausted.

There are signs of the exhaustion physically, too. I notice that as I type this, it is in sharp focus if I concentrate and stare, but the moment I relax even the slightest bit, the text blurs into a meaningless pattern of grey stripes on an off-white background. The situation with my back and shoulders is similar. If I focus, I can straighten and work past the pain, but the moment I relax, I slouch and feel the sharp needles that have been there all along.

I should have worked on several school-related projects this weekend, but was too tired to think clearly. I have the following tasks staring down at me:

• Updating a Web site on computer security
• Developing a series of class units on “old time radio” programs
• Completing a write-up of a survey I conducted this summer
• Compiling a bibliography for a writing course
• Memorizing terminology for a statistics course
• Updating my Web sites on writing and philosophy
• Finishing a draft of my autobiography
  and on and on the list goes…

Of course, those are only the school tasks. The house has much to be done, especially if I want to be more comfortable. I can’t even do a partial list online without consuming several pages. I keep thinking of new things every time I look about the house.

It’s fair to say that I feel overwhelmed lately. Physically, things hurt — a lot — and that is not helping my clarity at all.

Without my wife, I wouldn’t have managed to get anything done this weekend, yet again. She’s that person who helps too much at times, which makes me feel guilty, but it also reminds me that I can and should sit down and get my act together. Why I lack internal motivation has never been clear to me. There’s very little I want, other than a place to sit and write and read non-fiction. I’m not driven enough, and I know it. But she is my drive. I’m writing this long, rambling post with the list of to-do items staring back at me on the screen. I know reminding myself to tick off items for her, for the person to whom I owe everything, will get me working again… past the pain, past the input overloads, past the self-doubts.

But I wish I didn’t lose weekends to the exhaustion.