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Stardate: 20200805.0806
Location: Garage
Input Device: AlphaSmart dana.wireless
Audio: Birds, rumbling of the freeway off in the distance
Visual: Cluttered garage
Emotional State: Burnt, exhausted.
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I'm so fried right now. My on call shift ends at 10:00AM and I
cannot wait for it to be over. This past 2 weeks has been
challenging and I feel like my physical, mental, emotional, and
spiritual resources are depleted., This is a typical state for me
after reaching the end of an on call stretch. It usually takes me
about a week to fully recover (ugh.)
Durng my on call shifts, all of my self-care goes out the window.
My sleep is not good since I'm vigilantly listening for my work
phone, my eating is terrible and filled with instant junk, my
exercise is non-existent, and I always feel like I still have to
"get mine" at the end of the day, even if I end up sleeping at 2 in
the morning. This, "getting mine" business is basically getting time
for myself to do what I want to do. It could be listening to online
radio and hanging out in COM/irc, geeking out on the computer,
playing video games, working on personal projects, reading,
practicing music, watching video, or whatever.
"Getting mine" is a bit of a selfish need, but it is one of the things
I need to do to keep myself sane and happy, which is important, mmmkay?.
Unfortunately, many times, I do not schedule these things for
myself and if it does happen, it ends up happening at the end of the
day, when the family is asleep or doing their own thing and I can do
my thing alone and uninterrupted. By that time, I have no drive or
motivation to do anything resource intensive and if I do, forget
about getting any decent sleep.
For this round of on call, I feel like I have been short-changed in the
"getting mine" thing so now I am tempted to overcompensate for lost
time. This is a recurring pattern that keeps manifesting and is not good
becuse when this happens, I burn myself out even further, do shoddy
work on my projects, prolong my on call recovery period, and overall,
I'm just not a pleasant person to be around.
I think it would be best for me to put forth concentrated effort in
respecting the recovery period, let go of the "get mine" of now and
resume after I have taken adequate downtime. It will be time well
spent.
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Stardate: 20200805.2231
Location: Home Office
It turns out that I had had enough and decided to unplug at noon
today to rest. I was able to take a really long nap. +2 points
for self-care, yay!
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