The Weariness/Wariness Report

I am bone tired, and it's only Wednesday.  I had trouble falling asleep last night after I spent time on the phone with a program chair, troubleshooting pandemic protocols.  That phone call came after I went to our new condo to take photos of the balcony door locks that need the attention of a locksmith.  That trip to the condo came after an afternoon at work, being present and available in case the visiting corporate team needed me.

No wonder I'm tired.

I think of all the packing that I had planned to do so far, and I've made progress, but there's still so much to do.  There's a reason why we've been resistant to moving.  Even with all of our attempts to downsize, we still have a lot of stuff that needs to go into boxes or suitcases before we move.  We're just moving a mile away, and we'll still have access to the house for awhile, so the situation could be worse.

But it could be better, and that knowledge makes me tired.

I am also tired because it's clear to me that the autumn that I thought we might be able to pull off is not the autumn we are about to have, with this new variant that can infect even those of us who are fully vaccinated.  With more students heading back to in-person classrooms in the coming weeks, how on earth will this end well?

I am beyond fatigued with pandemic protocols.

Listing out the reasons for my weariness doesn't make me feel perky and energetic.  But it does remind me that there are valid reasons for my weariness--it's not just some lame excuse. I really am tired.

I have taken to reading Psalm 91 again.  Some of those verses are used in the Compline service at Mepkin Abbey, and last March, during the worst of my pandemic insomnia, those were the phrases that came to me, in Plainsong no less. And this morning, as I was writing, Heidi Rodrick-Schnaath's post came across my feed; the end has references to other sacred texts that have given me solace today, and the post itself is a reminder that I am not the only one feeling this exhaustion and fatigue.

So far all of us feeling exhausted, and I suspect that all of us are feeling some variation of exhausted, we have valid reasons, and probably even more than we first realize when we sit down to categorize.  But now it's time to go to work, where I resolve to treat myself with kindness and with countless cups of tea.