I didn’t sleep in as late as I did yesterday morning, but still, I slept in later than I normally do. 8 AM. Oooh.
The night before last, I dreamt about leaving Chicago after visiting for a while there. That was upsetting. Last night, I had a dream about being in some sort of semi-abandoned hotel. My husband, some industry friends, and I were on a second floor, somewhat empty section where there were bathrooms and showers and saunas and a breakfast area too. Going outside the enclave, there was a balcony overlooking some sort of massive, multi-story reception area. All the time, I was naked. And suddenly, more and more people entered the area we were in, and I was still naked. Part of me was horrified, and part of me recognized it was a dream and not real so was okay. A very strange juxtaposition to be in.
I had other strange dreams but I can’t remember them right now.
Throughout the night, I was adamant that I was going to make myself homemade egg McMuffins for breakfast. Once I woke up, I settled for a bowl of Sultana Bran (Raisin Bran for those of us raised in the USA).
I spent the entire morning and part of the afternoon working (yet again) on the online learning platform for our students. Like yesterday, I got really downtrodden that it feels like I am putting a ton of work into something when I’ll most likely get little (to no) recognition of that work again. I’m not saying I’m the only person at The Place Where I Work that’s putting the work in. But it’s fast becoming frustrating bordering on depressing that I get very little recognition for the hard work I’m always putting into the place.
Late this afternoon, I was told that I should take a step or three back and the world wouldn’t fall down if I didn’t do all that work and surely someone could step-up and help more. The only responses I could give were: yeah, heard this all before and nothing is being done and no one is stepping up and; a big shrug like, “Nobody fucking cares, and nobody will do anything about it.” Sadly, all true. This pattern repeats, and repeats, and repeats.
I stopped working earlier today than I normally do in lockdown. I felt tired, I felt burned out, and I felt like stuff wasn’t making sense any more.
Students start back next week. I have a bit more to do. But I can feel myself burning out before we get there. We will see.
Part of me feels like this is the end-of-the-line for this part of my career. I’m not being melodramatic, but I have felt this burnout for a long while, and this whole COVID-19 pandemic thing, including rushing us onto an online platform feels like a final straw. It is hard to type this and say this, but I need a balance between work and my personal life in my life.
We did fit in a moderately long walk to the reserve this afternoon. It was nice to have a good walk and blow away the cobwebs. The weather seemed to be changeable. One minute, it was clouded over like it was going to rain; another minute it seemed very Nor’West’r’, a wind that causes it to be dry and static-like and warm and annoying. It supposedly will change tonight and rain a little bit; we will see.
I said 2020 would be my year for me to focus on what I want and what my needs are. It hasn’t happened. I am very disappointed. No one plans for a worldwide pandemic, sure, but I would hope at least a little bit of my day could be something I like doing rather than feeling like some of my colleagues are probably doing very little work-related tasks while (yet again) I am working my ass off. Not fair.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m going into the night before that day feeling very blue and very downtrodden and very unspecial. Maybe it will feel different tomorrow; I don’t know. But I’m feeling a husk of myself in this extraordinary time of difficulty worldwide.
On a good note: scientists who have been data analyzing the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand had estimated we’d hit 4,000 cases by this past Saturday, and we didn’t. The shelter-in-place order has helped. One of them stated if we were in the 50s of new cases by today, we’d probably have been on the path to start emerging from the lockdown on-time (thereabouts). Today we had 54 cases, 30+ something confirmed (the rest were “suspected”), so that fit that definition. Despite quite a few community tests occurring, COVID-19 is not spreading in our community as much as they believed it would. Let’s hope the downward trend continues, we are able to isolate people entering our borders, and we can eradicate this horrible disease until a cure or vaccination is found.
I’m tired. I’m tired, and I’m uncertain, and I’m a cornucopia of emotions that keep spinning around. Let’s hope my birthday tomorrow actually is a good day. I’m skeptical but we will see.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 