This week was hard. Not because I couldn’t leave my house but because I had too many things happening in one week. My anxiety level reached an all time high. I haven’t felt that anxious in at least a year. Not since I was waiting for my husband’s official cancer diagnosis. I was working on something super important for work, along with a few other personal things, including but not limited to – my son breaking quarantine, my husband being in more pain than he had been for a while, my daughter’s school stress, my critical project at work… just all the things at once.

So I started walking as fast as I could for 5 km. I started walking in the grass barefoot. I started walking into the creek and letting the icy glacial water run over my feet. I started listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while staring up at the trees. I tried to breathe. I survived the week, and turned in my project. It was Thursday before the long weekend, and I could feel my body burnout or my brain or my eyes or my soul. I don’t know. Something. Something burned out. So I ordered pizza and pasta for my family, and celebrated my survival of the week, because it truly felt like surviving, by going to bed at 5:35 pm, waking slightly at the 7 pm cheer, before returning to sleep.

I slept until 6:30 am, and moved into the living room to start my day, where I fell asleep until 9 am, and then 10:30 am, and then 12:15 pm. This is surviving. The sleep of the burnout. The sleep of a hundred sleepless nights caught up with me. The sleep of anxiety. The sleep of self protection and recovery. It’s not productive. It’s not catching up. It’s rebooting.

And so today is « Good Friday », and I have slept most of it away. My daughter is sewing in her room, her machine sounding like an angry woodpecker on a street lamp. My son is reading in his room. My husband is in the basement, either in his shop or on his game. My cat is at my feet and I am in bed. Again. Not resting, not sleeping, just here. Stream of consciousness blogging about nothing. Rebooting.