excitement intensifies?

[alchimie]

I have been so busy again, and anxious, and trying to find the new rhythm of my days now that school has started, and of course both the children are over-tired and stressed as they find the rhythm of their days. I have a volunteer committment Saturday, but after that it will be more of a weekend, and then Sunday is going to be hot so we will make a family trip to the water park to enjoy it before the season ends.

My sleep has been poor, despite better bedtime habits; I seem to wake up once in the night, between 2 and 5, and am awake for 30 minutes or an hour before falling back asleep -- it is at least better than the previous 5:30 waking, since I do usually manage to sleep more in the night. I suppose if I went to bed earlier I could simply have two sleeps as a medieval person might and do something peaceful in the time between; this somewhat appeals to my antiquarian streak but seems difficult to enact in the world as it is. I must do something, though, as it is impacting my mood very negatively and I do not want to carry this low-level depression with me through the weeks and months, especially if the waking is perimenopausal and thus likely to continue for some time.

I have not had much attention for shows with narrative (books are another story), so I have been watching Chef and My Fridge in which refrigerators of Korean celebrities are brought to a television studio and then chefs must use the ingredients in them to cook for the celebrities -- so a mix of variety show (bad jokes, playful teasing of the celebrities and the chefs) and cooking competition. It does not quite make me laugh, but I appreciate the lightness of it and it is strange in some interesting ways. I love how the show itself captions shots of people, so there will be a shot of meat frying, then a shot of the celebrity smiling with the caption "excitement intensifies".

It is never my favourite month, August, it was always a very bad time in the long-ago past, but it is over halfway through, and it is perhaps harder again this year as early in September I have a volunteer committment I am truly dreading. But -- then it will be done until next year and I will breathe a sigh of relief and, I hope, look forward with a more joyful heart.

Comments

[graydon]

But -- then it will be done until next year and I will breathe a sigh of relief and, I hope, look forward with a more joyful heart.

Volunteer commitments you truly dread are perhaps those you should stop volunteering for? (If there's an element of "but I must!" it's not volunteer, whatever it is.)

I do hope things improve, and the broken sleep is no more than a manifestation of the specific stress and departs with it.

[alchimie]

Thank you for the thoughts, they are very much appreciated.

I considered your first paragraph on and off during the morning; the overall committment is a volunteer one (being a Girl Scout leader) which I do love -- I love to relate to the girls and facilitate the program for them, and I believe very much in the way that it is designed to let them explore their own interests and over time start identifying community problems and researching practical solutions. But being a leader has particular sub-tasks I dread, mainly going camping as the amount of preparatory work is so large, and then I am off in the woods for a weekend with other adults and a large group of girls, responsible for their safety and well-being and entirely unable to sit down and read, or take a shower, or do other things I find pleasant. So -- I find being a leader overall absolutely worth it, but this particular aspect of it dreadful in the literal sense. Whether that makes this aspect truly a volunteer task or not I am not certain, but I am finding it interesting to think about.

(Others in the system wish for me to point out that I dreaded it even more last year, and yet the actual weekend of camping was in large part joyful, so... it is difficult to say if the dread is a reliable indicator of the experience ahead.)

[graydon]

One might then ask if it's an anticipatory dread -- so many things could go wrong! so many ways I might fail! -- or a preparatory dread -- so many things I am not sure I know how to do! so many things I might not have to hand! -- or some other ilk of dread.

(I make a distinction between voluntary, something done for preference, and duty, something done to maintain possibility of liking yourself in the future. This is plausibly eccentric of both definition and distinction.)

Dread is usually incorrect, after the fact, yeah. Which is not the same thing as being false or meaningless or silly; dread is nigh-always trying to communicate something. Often in less than helpful ways, it must be granted.

[alchimie]

I think anticipatory dread, both of things going wrong while being there, and of not being able to cope in a more general sense -- what if the lack of privacy makes me so miserable I want to just curl up in a ball and cry the entire time? (Unlike me in action, but the feeling can occur.) What if I am woken up constantly through the entire night and am too tired to function the next day, except that being too tired to function is not actually an acceptable state? And so forth.

But then when I am there, I am too busy to notice whether or not I am miserable, which is much like not actually being miserable, and even when I am tired I am entirely able to cope with it and keep goiing at a sufficient level. So perhaps for next year I might remember to trust myself and my capabilities more.

Also, I do immensely enjoy the opportunity to relate to the girls all weekend; I like young people in a general case and these particular young people I am attached to.

I find your voluntary/duty distinction a very useful one indeed, and I have been considering the number of things in my life that I perform as duty and thinking how it ties into levels of stress and chances for pleasure or the lack thereof.

[graydon]

Yay! (potentially) useful distinction. I find that particular distinction useful, but have not always been able to to convey it.

It sounds like the anticipatory dread is not presently well-founded (yay!) and might be one of those "self image always lags" things or it might be no more complicated than the task as a whole being difficult. Having done this twice now, trusting yourself more seems entirely well-founded.