Life has been a little depressing lately...I'm exhausted with no apparent cause (I've been taking iron supplements and have decided to add a meat dish every week to my diet to avoid anemia), haven't been sleeping well, and have no energy.
I've begun cracking into my Bible in the mornings again (I've needed that pretty desperately) and exercise regularly, so hopefully with my improvements in diet I'll be picking up the pace again.
Really I think my exhaustion stems from my job. I love my work, I love the kids, I love what Meg and I are trying to do; but it's an exhausting job. All day every day I have to remain patient, calm, and loving for 6-8 very small children whose mental/emotional wellbeing partially depends upon my attitude and how attentive and vigilant I am for them. This keeps me on my guard every second.
Plus it was a long summer with only one steady volunteer on only Monday and Wednesday mornings. Meg and I have been planning and executing lessons (Yes, we do lessons: This is an early intervention classroom, not a daycare) all morning every morning by ourselves since June. All summer we've been upbeat about it, refusing to admit how hard our job has been, plowing through until we can get a break. Finally more volunteers are returning with the start of the academic year; but not many are coming in the mornings when we do our lessons and need the most help: Therefore we're not getting much of a break. But even a slight bit of help has the weight of the summer leaning on me -- rather like plowing through a semester refusing to get sick because of the workload for school, then going home for fall break and catching pneumonia, the flu, or some ungodly horrible cold. Only this is manifesting itself not in illness but utter, bone-deep mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.
I am dead tired. When I come home I barely have enough energy to make something for dinner before I sink into the couch and stare vacantly at the TV until bedtime. My entire apartment needs a thorough cleaning; my plants need regular watering; my refrigerator could stand a purge; but I can't do it.
It upsets me when people assume that most of my negligence of a social life is due to some internal rudeness or irresponsibility or callous disregard. First, my job is my life. I love it, and I will not leave it until my work there is pretty much through, and while I have it I must necessarily have early bedtimes and low-key weekends, since any time not at work is time recuperating from that day and preparing for the next. I'm in social work. If I show up groggy or grumpy children who have already endured more insecurity than I have ever endured in my life will suffer for it. I cannot do that to them. Thus, my night life is g.o.n.e. Kiss it goodbye, friends; I already have.
I am happy to meet people for dinner. I miss a lot of the folks I used to see regularly. But I can't jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a work night. I doubt I can even jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a weekend night. At ten o'clock my vision starts fuzzing. It's the nature of my current life.
Second, I am by nature an introvert. I do not believe this characteristic is the negative hurdle-to-be-overcome that contemporary society would have us believe. It is merely a fact. By nature I avoid oversocializing with people -- not because I dislike people, but because being with people, however fun and necessary and wholesome (and it is fun and necessary and wholesome) drains my resources. It has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with how I'm wired. When I'm at a mental/physical/emotional ebb, I heal by being alone. And I've been in a mental/physical/emotional low tide for a long time.
So friends, please don't take offense if I neglect you. I love you, and apologize for neglecting you, and hope not to neglect you soon. In the meantime, if you think of me, kindly pray that more morning volunteers will show up to help Meg and me, because until then it looks like my social life (which, may I reiterate, is sometimes just as much work for me as my job) is kerplut.
And in the meantime, I'm going to bed.
7 comments:
Ah, yes... if I may speak as one introvert to another.... Damn, isn't it hard to explain to people that heavy socialization takes a lot out of you without making them think that either A) you hate them or B) you're some antisocial psycho who's going to shoot up a post office some day? On the bright side, I think being wired this way has made it easier for me to get to know some very wonderful fellow introverts who might otherwise have clammed up and deprived me of their friendship. So it's not entirely a curse.
Oh, and pardon me for not saying how lucky the kids are to have you around.
Going out last weekend threw off the whole of this week for me, and I'm still gasping to make it up. When I don't have time for solitude, I am exhausted, irritable, miserable. Despite my constant efforts to be anything but, I am, at heart, an introvert, and it takes kindly souls like you to remind me that I'm not alone in my need to be alone. The best sort of friend, I feel, is one with whom you can sit down and not talk with at all. And darn! That really makes me miss some people. I could really use one of them today.
Sonia and Joey...so dear to my heart. (I was expecting criticism...huzzah for fellow introverts!)
Hang in there, Joey...will either of you be at homecoming? We can be socially introverted there.
Can we be socially introverted at Ben's? Maybe with some English professors? :-) No, actually I'm not at all sure I'll be there. I sort of missed the boat on arranging for weekend accomodations, so I'm still waiting to see if anything is going to pan out. But I'm ready to go at the drop of a hat if anything does.
As one who's always considered herself an extravert, I am with you all the way on early nights, early mornings. When you have to be at work at 6:30, there's not a lot of room for going out, especially if you work on the weekends. This is why my Fridays are usually spent cleaning the house and staying at home.
You're a good person Sarah. I'm bummed I won't get to see you this year at homecoming.
People always think I'm extroverted, when in reality, I love spending my weekends by myself. That's how I spent the majority of my highschool evenings and weekends and coming to college was complete culture shock for me because I was surrounded by people every waking (and sleeping) minute. I'm always having to stave off people from signing me up for therapy because they assume that the extroverted Garrett is suddenly depressed now that he spends his free time alone.
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