I am...overcommitted.
That's putting it lightly, in fact. I'm deeply overcommitted and I've been pulling energy from my future by skipping sleep or putting off necessary tasks, borrowing against tomorrow and then tomorrow again when the day comes due.
Right now it's not at a danger point. I haven't run myself down to the place where Traitor Brain starts to sound reasonable, but it's been getting there these last few months. I've actually done a few things in the last couple of days that have silenced a large chunk of personal anxiety and stress. There are a few large frogs on the horizon to be eaten, and then I should be able to have a serious quantity of ammunition for silencing the voice of doubt and self-destruction.
Part of the problem is that I don't want to give up any commitments. I love the Dionysium and I like my job and I love the stuff I do for CMA and I get so much out of my two D&D games and Ingress and everything else, but I find myself finishing a load of laundry at 1:30 in the morning because one of the cats, motivated either by missing a few days (OK, a week) of litterbox scooping or anxiety over me being gone so much of the time, has started peeing on important things.
My problem isn't a problem; my life is a glorious buffet of interesting, wonderful people and activities. I just need to go on a bit of a diet, activity-wise (note to self: we were going to find time to work out).
I'm not asking for help, necessarily. I'm asking for patience and understanding.
Please keep inviting me to stuff. A couple of people have told me recently "We didn't invite you, though we really wanted you to come, because you're so busy and we know you've been tired." This level of opportunity for interaction isn't going to change. There will always be five excellent things to do every day, and only time to do ten things a week. I need to learn to balance that myself, and the only way to do that is for me to start learning to turn down invitations that sound really wonderful but that I just can't reasonably do. I've begun it, but I'm not 100% (hell, I'm not 25%). But let me sort out my priorities and activities as I can.
Please understand if you invite me and I tell you I can't make it, even if you know I'm not busy or doing anything that day. The bathtub has to get scrubbed sometime, you know? And some days I just need to sit on the couch and watch Netflix or DVDs, or sleep in and read.
Please, even though it's not the politest thing for me to do, understand if I flake off on social stuff at the last minute. Sometimes I commit to a thing because it sounds SO AWESOME but I completely didn't think about the thing I was doing across town until 20 minutes before it. A couple of times recently I've dragged myself to something I just had no energy for doing, because the *people* involved in it were people I care about and want to spend time with. I need to stop doing that, and that's no one's responsibility or fault but mine.
Lastly, I'm still an extrovert. I still require substantive human contact. But for a little while, I'm going to need to be less proactive about initiating that contact, while I sort out my activities and priorities. If you don't hear from me, don't assume I don't care or don't want to see you. I'm just out of bandwidth for reaching out and I'm trying to balance things. Feel free to give me a call or ping me in chat; work is intermittently slow these days so I often have time to talk during the day.
I just keep telling myself this backing off isn't permanent, that I'm not giving up anything; I just need, for myself, a little more balance and a little more focus on maintaining life stuff.
I love you all.
No comments:
Post a Comment