One long whine.
So my schedule is a little weird, but it’s not completely insane. I don’t work overnight or anything. Every morning I wake up at 5:45 a.m., shower and prepare my food for the next nine hours, get to work by 7 a.m., work until 3:00 p.m., commute home, go to the gym/do yoga from 4-5:15 or so. I usually eat around 6 and then I try to get stuff done. Laundry, ironing, vacuuming, reading my books, whatever. I’m in bed by 9:30 or 10 p.m. most nights. So why does it feel like I never have any free time?
The other thing is: I am only one person. I only cook, clean and do laundry for myself. I am one not very large person. I live in a studio apartment. Everything about me and my life is small, therefore it doesn’t take that long to clean up or prepare.
I can’t even imagine living a life with a house or children or, I don’t know, a hobby. In the past couple years, I’ve stopped doing any creative writing because I simply don’t have time. Don’t get me wrong: my creative writing blows. I am terrible at fiction. Any time I try to write fiction, I end up doing three hours worth of research just to figure out what kind of shoes a female character in 1940s France might have been wearing. So I’m not an efficient writer, nor am I very creative. But I like to do it!
Now if I have free time at all, I spend it catching up with friends or my sister or hanging out with my fiance. It’s not like these are crazy time commitments or anything. I go some weeks without hanging out with any friends outside of work. So where does all my time go?
For a long time I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t doing anything creative because my job was so mentally taxing. And it is. It’s detail-oriented, deadline-driving, word-focused work, which I enjoy. But it’s not more mentally (over)stimulating than anyone else’s job, particularly here in D.C. My job is diddlysquat compared to a lot of people’s jobs in D.C.
I’ve been thinking all this for a solid two years. It’s nice to get it out in one long whine. Done now!
Filed under: d.c., issues | Leave a Comment
No Responses Yet to “One long whine.”