Perpetual Exhaustion

How hard is it to trademark a phrase? These days, I feel like I may as well start making some merch for my new brand name, Perpetual Exhaustion. (I’m starting to think this may be a really good idea. Please don’t steal it from me. I kind of want a t-shirt now.)

I feel like adult life is pretty tiring as it is. I wake up, get myself and kids ready for school/work, go to school/work all day, then I come home, clean, make dinner, eat dinner, work some more (either grading or writing), and then sleep. It’s a lot of work, but somehow it works. See how that works? 😉

But there are other things that make everything seem even more exhausting. I’m not even going to name all the things because that would mean opening a gargantuan can of worms, and I haven’t the time to clean that up, but I will name a few.

The seasons changed, and daylight savings time happened, so I see the sun for a total of about twenty minutes a day now. (Because I’m indoors working most of the daylight hours.) I miss the sun. The lack of authentic Vitamin D makes me feel more exhausted. (I do take a nice Vitamin D supplement with Vitamin K my therapist recommended, so don’t worry too much.)

It’s the end of the quarter for my day job (teaching), so that means I have months of late and missing assignments streaming in along with frantic emails from students begging me to make exceptions despite my policies and repeated reminders about the end of the quarter coming and when deadlines would be.

I found out I need a little bit o’ dental surgery, so my already hectic schedule will be compounded with me being all drugged up and loopy for a couple days, although I am looking forward to the videos of the ridiculous things I say and do whilst drugged up.

My son is in a super-cute phase right now where the moment something doesn’t go his way, he throws himself on the floor and screams. He’s four. And this happens approximately twenty times a day. (We’re working on this…We’re trying to teach him to take deep breaths when he gets mad and to talk about it when he’s frustrated. Having big feelings is okay but yelling at everyone and squeezing your sister’s head is not, etc.)

What was my point again?

Oh yeah. I’m tired.

But I still signed myself up for NaNoWriMo, and I am determined to hit my goal. It’s going to get pieced together in the little moments I have nights and weekends between grading and cooking and cleaning and tantrums and surgeries.

Despite my exhaustion, I have this flame burning inside me that just won’t go out, and even though I can’t think of a clever name for it right now, it’s a flame that insists on me reaching my goals, no matter how long it may take and despite my perpetual exhaustion (patent pending).

Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash