Work is hard. I don't mean the job itself, though every job is hard in its own way. Nor do I mean physical work.
I mean the whole process of getting up and actually going to work. Dealing with day to day choices that come with having a job. Dealing with people.
The alarm blares and I take a few minutes to adjust to being awake, not in blissful, unconscious ignorance of reality. I get up and have to choose something to wear, when I don't know what I feel like wearing and know that whatever I choose, I will likely regret for one reason or another.
Then I have to choose what to do with my hair. Again, it is bound to feel wrong at some point. Up, down. I compromise and go for half up, half down.
Downstairs, make tea and toast, wishing that perhaps I was more adventurous when I can barely even decide what to have on my toast out of my usual two options.
It is the time in the day that I have to myself, when everyone else is sleeping and I don't have to engage in conversation, I can just be me. But that time slips away quickly and in what seems like an instant, I am in the bathroom brushing my teeth, then dashing back downstairs to get my things together, realising that I forgot to make the bed.
Fill up my water bottle, pack my bag. Now to decide on shoes and I don't have time to linger on my choice. It isn't due to rain so I quickly put on the sparkly sandals, knowing as I do so, that when I step outside it will feel cold and likely that it will, in fact, rain.
As I head for the door, I select an audio book, put in my headphones, put my phone in my bag and then get the headphone wire tangled as I sling the bag over my head.
Walking down the steps towards the main road presents more choices. Do I turn left and so up a long hill and through the town, before following the long and windy climb to work? Do I turn right, and up an even steeper hill, but cut off the corner of the main town and save myself a little time, even if I give myself the feeling of going into cardiac arrest? I could walk on past that hill and up another, which is not quite so steep, then head up a second long and challenging hill to come out by the train station. A route which is useful if you are going to catch the train, but not if you are in fact going further up another long hill after that. Unless you fancy a change of scenery. Or perhaps the scenic route through the park, before heading up towards the station, then work? A longer route, but a prettier one.
Each option is hard work and leave few differences when it comes to time.
I decide that I am tired of the main town, that the steepest hill feels too traumatic today and that I cannot afford the few extra minutes it requires to walk through the park.
As I come out opposite the station, fighting for breath, I question whether I have perhaps added more time that is necessary to my journey and that perhaps these hills are not much different from the other I avoided because it was too steep and which would have shaved considerable minutes of my travelling time.
The last push up the final hill takes a fair amount of effort, but I somehow manage to do it without stopping once and finally reach work.
I thought I'd be early, that I'd have a few minutes to myself to cool down, get a drink of water, gather my thoughts. But no. Some are even earlier than me, looming, barking orders, asking questions, whilst I am still slightly breathless, red faced, sweaty.
So instead of those two minutes I desperately need to myself after arriving, which were the main point of trying to get here a little early, I have to deal with people. Already they have started to do the things which I normally take pride in doing. The things which make me feel useful and make me look as though I know perfectly well what I am doing and that I do not need to hang around awaiting instructions.
It happens to be the bossiest of people in charge, ordering us about with little patience, targeting me for no reason. They have been doing this job considerably less time than me, but because they are more confident and managerial style, they are running the show and seem to think that means everyone has to jump to their attention and their word is law.
Already the two new people are jumping in on the things that I like doing. I suspect, that like me, they want to look busy and are merely trying to prove themselves and find their place. But they are getting it wrong, despite my attempts to tell them and I sigh and spend time correcting the mistakes, considering how thing may go faster and smoother if it was me on my own.
It isn't that I dislike people, or working in a team, it's just that some are harder to work with than others. Whether it's the way they don't listen, try to take over, try to help when it's more of a hindrance. Some get in my personal space too much. Some of my colleagues are easy to work with, easy to talk to and we gel together and work together better. Today is not one of the days those people are in though.
We get through the shift. I get through it, despite being made to do a dozen extra things at the end when I thought we were done and wanted to go. At last, it is over and it is time to go home, although this presents more choices for me. I can go shopping in the nearby supermarket; I can go home the scenic route, through the woods; or I can go straight home.
I choose shopping, although I don't really know why. I am weary and know that I will only be tortured with more choices. I buy a few things I don't need, forget things I do need, have regret for not buying a few things I wanted but which I knew would leave me tortured for wasting money.
Now more choices. Main road home, or woods? I choose the woods, hoping that I will benefit from waking through nature, forgetting that the nearest entrance is closed off and I have to around the long way, through the industrial estate, to find an entrance.
This route is a mistake because I feel too tired to really appreciate and just wish I was home already. I automatically cut off the park and head the shortest route home from there. Climbing the steps to the house seems to take an age, and probably does take longer than normal because my legs feel like lead.
Finally, I am home. Putting away my purchases, engaging in tedious discussion when all I want to do is go upstairs and collapse on my bed, despite knowing I will be wasting the rest of the day to do so and wracked with guilt about it. There is cleaning to be done. The sun is shining, perfect weather for planting out the seedling that have been sitting in pots for ages, sown when I was feeling enthusiastic.
I could read, or write, just do something. I wish I were more adventurous and felt like going out somewhere, even if it were just to hop on a bus or train to the next town, visit something, go on an ambitious hike. But I feel tired. The four walls of home are all too tempting and all I really want to do is lie down and nap. Shut out the world. Before I have to get up, make a cup of tea for everyone, then make dinner later and wash up before I finally get any time to myself to just sit and be me.
I consider my days off and how I can make use them, but know that I will probably still just sit around at home, avoiding life, avoiding people, comforted by same old, same old, yet also hating myself for not setting out and living life while I have the chance.
I am stable and safe within my routine, but at the same time trapped within it.
Sometimes I look back and see all the chances I missed, but don't do anything to compensate. I still don't take that day trip, or go for coffee, or take that long hike.
Why? Is it because I don't want to break the routine, despite knowing I am wasting my life in mundanity? Is it that I don't really want to do these things alone, whilst spending half my time with people wishing I was alone?
Life is exhausting.
Because of the day to day choices, as well as the big ones. It is hard to know what is actually a waste of time and what is worthwhile.
But there is not much else to do. Except continuously press the reset button, do everything all over again, hoping that something will magically change, knowing that it won't until I make it.
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