So after turning myself into a work-breathing theater mermaid of the mind, how am I to handle the aftermath of the show? I certainly still have work that needs doing (think of the common hamster on a wheel metaphor), but all of a sudden that work doesn't require that I use nights and weekends as working hours.
I can do the work in the daylight. Monday through Friday(ish).
Which means that the person behind the job now has evenings and weekends to...?
Try to downshift and remember what precisely it is that I enjoy doing not because I have to, but because I want to. And reacquaint myself with the people in my life who are marginalized into the category of neglect known as my "friends and family."
I took two personal days off of work to recover.
Day One:
5:00am- Wake up, groggily get into clothes, swill coffee.
5:30am- Go into work to set up Romeo & Juliet video & plans for sub.
6:30 am- Come home, attempt to write personal emails.
7:00 am- Write work emails that keep distracting me from personal emails.
8:30 am- Okay, back to personal email I had left off in mid-sentence.
8:40 am- Field phone call from school freaking out about how to turn on lights in theater, which is being used for school pictures.
9:30am- Finish up school emails. For real. Even close the tabs. Go back to writing personal emails.
9:40am- Pass out in puddle of drool, having just started chatting with friends.
11:00am- Wake up, determined to go into Ellsworth with self, to buy chicken shavings, read a book at the Mex while eating nachos and veggie fajitas, with possible window shopping at Goodwill and TJ Maxx.
11:15am- Dave wakes up from his (matching- we do his and hers) morning nap, and gets a chance to talk with his doctor about that pain in his abdomen.
12:00pm- I drop Dave off at the doors of the Ellsworth ER, and then go hit the Mex. I did mention that after all the work attempting to be a humane director that it is a struggle to regain my humanity in my personal life, right? Also, Dave is a walking physical/health disaster magnet, and I have learned to sort his pain into drama levels so I won't live my life worrying (and getting stress-related conditions myself). This was not life and death.
12:10pm- While tucking into nachos (OMG, sooooo good) think: "Wow, I am a total asshole."
12:15pm- These nachos really hit the spot.
12:20pm- It's as if I just dropped him off for a playdate at the hospital. I'm that callous. Oh- I'd know that sizzle anywhere- my fajitas are on their way!
12:21pm- While the fajitas are exciting, I am still digging these nachos.
12:22pm- Worst wife ever, but I am in my happy place.
12:40pm- Finish my green tea chai, settle up, prep to do walk of wifely shame into ER.
12:45pm- ER Room #3. Dave told them that I buggered off to go shopping, so the looks I am getting are a little quizzical, which is the professional version of horrified. Happily, my theater training has made me pretty comfortable with making an ass of myself publicly.
12:45-4:00pm- Time ceases to have much meaning (the interiors of hospitals being similar to theaters, that way). I get to watch Dave's insides via ultrasound in a dim room with white noise, and hear the nachos in my belly say "Sleeeeeeeeeeep. Sleeeeeeeeeeep the sleeeeeeeep of the satiated!" Curse the molded plastic chairs that are my destiny as the patient's spouse. Spend much time in ER Room #3 sitting in molded plastic chair while looking longingly at Dave's comfy johnny and hospital bed. Experience intense spousal jealousy. Why does he always get the bed and I always get the chair? Text Dave's Mom re: the condition of Dave's condition: liver, appendix, & gallbladder fine, just a new presentation of his kidney stone issues. Text friends for sympathy/to keep from falling over in puddle of own drool.
4:something pm- Leave time sink that is hospital, get into truck, go to fill prescriptions for Flomax & high test ibuprofin. Buy self hair dye and leave in conditioner. Get Dave to buy me cadbury creme eggs, because I have made a rule I will only eat them if they are gifts from other people. Nearly drive off road three times when back on Deer Isle because I am distracted by some form of natural beauty that I can't recall or even imagine now, because seriously- this is just the ugliest part of the year. Maybe it was sunny and I was just dumbstruck. Dave waited until the third time before he said "ummmm.... wifey? Are you trying to kill us?" He is very patient with me.
6:00pm- 12:00am- Work 500 piece Jane Austen jigsaw puzzle while watching Austenland and the intensely abridged movie version of Pride & Prejudice. Dye hair improbable shade of auburn. Dave passes two kidney stones.
Day Two:
Do not really even remember this day except that it involved reading, sleeping, and solving the puzzle again (a NEW way) while Dave watched Magnum P.I. I bet I ate something. Like pizza or nachos. Dave passes another kidney stone. I do know I got up and went into work at 5:30 again, thinking I needed to set up the theater for my class, and realized- nope, it was going to be in the computer lab again, and I should have just slept in.
Day Three: BONUS! Snow Day.
I totally cleaned the kitchen and the bedroom, and was only mildly passive aggressive about it!
Took apart and solved the puzzle again, mourning the fact that I did not time the puzzle working, so can not analyze the affect of learning on completion time. Could have at least tallied number of times Dave shook his head at me about the puzzle mania.
By Day Seven, I had read two actual books, had gotten back to sanitary conditions in our food space, had clean laundry- bathed for real (not just washing my hair while kneeling at the tub) had written two long nearly intelligible blog posts, had dinner out with friends. Also, naps with my cat.
Today, Dave used a 2x4 to block me and win a race while we were running through the deluge to the truck, so the jerk balance is back in a happy place as well.
So the official steps to regain my humanity (assuming travel and good weather is out of the question):
Eat at the Mex. With book.
Close out of work email, and hide computer/iPad. Seriously- phone as only device, used for audible, compulsively checking weather, and texting friends.
Work puzzles mindlessly and repetitively to get out the excess OCD.
Read books (anywhere, everywhere).
Clean.
Binge watch BBC material.
Write inane blog post or journal entries.
Spend mundane time with Dave being made fun of.
Pass out in puddle of drool with cat.
While it might make for a unnecessarily long post, I am totally talking to my future self right now, and I know she'll probably appreciate the reminder this time next year. And now... think about ordering Galley Pizza for lunch, (my stomach also went OCD and I am having a hard time getting off the pizza, nachos, frappacino wagon), and working a puzzle- I borrowed new ones from a friend...
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