Exhaustion

I'm physically and emotionally exhausted right now.  Fortunately, I've got a three day weekend ahead of me, so I am looking forward to some serious recovery time.  I need to just get off the grid and sleep, eat, stare at the wall, listen to music, and wander in the forest for a while. I need several nights of good sleep and the opportunity to pivot back to my normal sleep schedule, which has been wholly disrupted the last months/weeks as we went through the dying process with my friend.

Anyone who has been through that process knows how exhausting it can be, between the emotional and physical requirements, it is one tough road.  The road is done though. In the aftermath of such events you're glad that your friend is no longer suffering. There is a sense of relief - relief in that their suffering is over and relief that the particular journey, for everyone involved is over.

Mainly, I just need to curl up and sleep, so I am heading off work to do that in exactly eighteen minutes.  (LOL even in a state of exhaustion I am still borderline OCD and need to stop work at the top or bottom of the hour.)

I've been avoiding work meetings today and avoiding commenting when I am in those meetings because I know that the filter between what I am thinking and what I will say is, at this point, badly damaged. I did manage to get some work done, but I have fallen behind on other projects, so there is a lot of stuff that has been simply stacking up. 

I also know, from prior experience, that when I am in this state of exhaustion I am prone to react disproportionately to things.  Things that would normally roll off my back - won't.  Things that would normally not bother me - do. It's kind of a dangerous place to be.

Over the years I have seen the damage that families can do to each other as they go through the dying and grieving process, so I have been sensitive to that.  There is still some damage being done in his family, but that is a burden I can't bear for them.  Once the dust settles I can counsel them toward forgiveness and reconciliation, but that is about all I can do.  I'm sure I will write more about it in the coming days, because wherever you go through this process there are always lessons learned - both general lessons on dying and specific lessons on the things that are done or undone that could have been handled better.

Meanwhile through, the foggy tendrils of exhaustion are firmly rooted in my brain. So, I will get some sleep, and then when I wake up I think I am going to order a pizza.  My end of the work-week ritual is usually pizza and a movie off TV or the DVR, so as part of getting back to normal, that's my plan tonight, after my nap.  That is assuming that my nap doesn't turn into "to heck with it, I'm going to sleep for sixteen hours straight."  There is about a 50/50 shot of that.