I hate Mondays. It's gotten so bad that I start feeling depressed in the middle of the afternoon on Sundays. Just in the last five minutes, I've apparently let out so many long heavy sighs that even Chris noticed and gave me a quizzical look.
Tomorrow is orientation day for the undergrad IMSD summer program. This takes place in a room on main campus that is about 5 times too small for the number of students, parents, and the rest of us who will be crammed in it. As a graduate IMSD student, I'm required to spend a week in August teaching these incoming freshmen some biology. I guess the idea is to kind of give them a taste of what they'll encounter in their intro classes in the fall (they will also have physics and chemistry modules). Additionally, us older students tell the younger ones what not to do and the mistakes we made on the way to getting a bachelor's degree and beyond.
I don't know how useful I will be tomorrow. I just feel emotionally drained. For the last several months, it just seems like I have to keep giving and giving and giving. Giving instruction to various minions, giving my extra time (of that, there's been damn little), my love, and every last ounce of patience to Elliot, and just generally expending all of my energy on preparing for lab meetings, a conference, and my committee meeting. What I haven't done is give so generously to myself. I don't sleep well, I haven't been eating well, I don't really engage in any relaxing hobbies or go anywhere but the bar with friends. And sometimes I go weeks without having any significant social interaction outside of the lab and home. There are times that I feel excruciatingly lonely, even when I'm surrounded by people. I'm just tired. I really need a vacation. I think the last time Chris and I went out of town alone was when Elliot was two or three and we went to a wedding in Ohio. I had such a bad respiratory infection that I was convinced I had whooping cough. Even now I'm not sure that I didn't. That didn't make for a relaxing time at all.
Goddamn it! I just took a sip of beer and realized that I've been sharing it with some kind of insect for the last few minutes. WTF?! I give up. I'm a fabulous complainer - I like to do it and I've become pretty good at it too. Now I just have to figure out how to make things better for myself. I'm not so great at that yet, but I'm gonna keep trying.
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