the opposite of eye-twinkles

we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…
—1 Corinthians 15:52, misquoted because out of context

I woke at not-quite-five this morning with this rippling through my head. I didn’t sleep well—or certainly didn’t fall enough back to sleep after then to feel rested when I gave up at 7:30am. Saturday I’d taken a nap; today I took a nap. Sunday morning, as we walked toward our worship-service, My Sweetie commented that last Wednesday evening I’d looked completely exhausted. He thought it might have been the shoes I’d worn.

I’m pretty sure it’s the ramp-up into operating a standard work day.

Granted, all that people-ing took its toll on Wednesday, Thursday, and half of Friday. My brain reduced itself to pudding by the time we finished—I was both too jittery and too exhausted to disengage from folks, shift mental gears, and go home.

But I remember that, when I took That Contract, during those first two or three weeks I went to bed flattened every day. There is a certain amount of stamina required for beginning a day at the beginning, then pursuing activities one after the other until some evening stopping point. My prior quarter-time work-from-home job hadn’t called for that energy flow—I would work for a while, and then something else (the girls, mostly) would pull me away for a while, and then I’d return. I didn’t notice how micro-tidal it was until I was no longer using that rhythm.

I also remember how energized I felt as my body regained its longer flow.

It dissipated, let’s hope for reasons specific to that contract at that season, and there’s no reason not to repeat the all-day-work-day experiment. As I plan to do tomorrow, fall term’s first day of classes.

I wish today had had more juice to it. There were a couple of activities I’d considered completing, and it would have been satisfying to accomplish them. Yet today retained the low-energy, low-stamina movement of the previous two days. Orientation consumed not just my daily energy, but my stockpiles. I can see it will take a while to get more energy efficient.

 

I don’t want it to take two, three weeks to get going. And I’m glad I remembered it took that long before. I might not be interested in spending the time it takes to acclimate myself, because it already seems tedious. Still, the world goes as it will, not as we will it, and arguing about it is even more tedious. So I will simply begin.

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