After taking a week away from life to rest up and try to recover from the soul-numbing burnout I was trapped in prior to my vacation, the main impression I’ve got is that it wasn’t nearly enough time. I was so exhausted and burned out that I couldn’t even feel tired and exhausted until the middle of the week. It took four days of rest to even begin to feel just how wrecked I was, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Now, another four days on from that, I’m still battling a deep and pervasive sense of exhaustion even as I’m forced to begin getting back to work. I mean, I could still take some time off to continue resting, but that would mean leaving things undone. I don’t think that’s in my best interest, especially given that I’m going to be walking into the second half of my project-based work-marathon the day this post actually goes up on my blog. After all, the stuff I’m doing this week is supposed to help with making that marathon easier on me, on top of finally doing a bunch of stuff that I’ve been putting off due to a lack of energy (like researching what the actual cost of a new computer will be, where to host my blog that won’t be more mentally taxing than I can afford in my daily spoon budget, and how to introduce more opportunities for in-person socializing). It’s all stuff that I will benefit from having done, but it’s difficult to convince myself to actually do it when I’m still so damn tired.
Continue readingApartment Life
My Greatest Reading Struggle In My New Apartment
I’ve been continuing to chew through books at a steady clip, though my pace has slowed down a bit since I finished moving. I can do other things easily now, so I am spreading my reading time out more and not going through a book every day or two. Now I’m down to a book or two every week. It’s about the same number of pages every week, seven or eight hundred, but sometimes that’s one book, sometimes that’s two books, and I’m sure I’ll find a monstrous book where that will only be a part of a single book. Most of that time is when I finish a game before I’m ready to go to bed, when I’ve got a meal that only takes one hand, when I’m killing time between things, and evenings when I want to avoid screen time. It’s nice, even if I’m mostly rereading books these days rather than digging through anything new, but I’ve been so stressed and tired over the past month that I wanted something familiar and simple rather than anything particularly trying. I did not want to find myself stressed out by not knowing what happens next. Which has definitely made for some mental rest, but it also means I haven’t had anything new to mentally chew on from my reading time. It also means most of my thoughts about my reading experience are a reflection on where I was and how I was sitting rather than the novels I was reading.
Continue readingLiving In My Apartment One Month Later
After nearly a month of being in my new apartment (at least it will have been a month as of when this goes up), things have continued to settle into a comfortable pattern. I’m still adjusting my apartment bit, since I prioritized rest and relaxation over finish up hanging art and string lights, but I’m getting close to being done. Plus, there’s some stuff you only ever figure out as you live in a place, like what constitutes an adequate number of curtains, which sections of the floor really need a carpet, whether or not you need more lamps (or just need to move around the ones you’ve already got), and so on. There’s plenty that I’m only figuring out as I move from my recovery period to my comfortable occupation period, so it might be a while before I’m one hundred percent done. I will say that sleeping without earplugs is great and that finally getting the right curtains set up (with two sets layered atop each other in my bedroom) has really improved my sleep. Now I just need to fix my horrible broken sleep schedule and I should be good to go. All those late nights from moving and then stress have really messed up my body’s sense of when to go to sleep.
Continue readingSettling In To My New Apartment
I have learned a lot about my apartment over the last week. Between painting, moving, and unpacking, there is little I’ve done since the beginning of the month except pay attention to my apartment, the space it provides, and the way I exist within that space. While the space might have felt empty, generic, and difficult to occupy initially, I’ve come to know it better since then. I have learned many of its quirks, realized a few of my own, and figured out how to best inhabit the space. While all my packing is not yet finished (and does not even feel close, even though I know I should be done by the end of the weekend following the writing of this post), I know how best to use the space I’ve got with the various pieces of furniture I have brought with me. I might shift some of that around, since even my excellent ability to tell how objects can fit within a space is not infallible, but for the most part I feel like I have figured out my space.
Continue readingUnpacking My Thoughts On Unpacking
The slow, arduous process of unpacking is taking me so much longer than I thought it would. It probably doesn’t help matters that I’ve been largely confined to working between the time I’m finished with work (sometime at or after 6pm) and before “quiet hours” start in my apartment at 9pm. Sure, I could keep working after that, but I refuse to be the noisy upstairs nieghbor that I tried to escape. I will not be bumping and thumping around my apartment until all hours of the night. Sure, I can sometimes find something quiet to do, like last night’s folding laundry and unpacking clothes, but I also have to contend with the continued exhaustion from my packing and moving. It’s not like my rest is any good when I finally collapse onto my bed for the night since the mental residue of my life being disturbed prevents me from falling asleep easily. Plus, the most relaxing thing I’ve done all week was go to a friends’ for 2 hours to attempt to play D&D where we wound up just shooting the shit for the whole two hours. After which, I went home and continued to unpack.
Continue readingPost-Move Exhaustion Blankets My Mind
I survived my move. As has most of my stuff (so far as I can tell, anyway, about 48 hours after just getting it all into my apartment and then being forced to leave it alone for about 48 hours due to needing to clean out the old place, drive my sister home, and then go to work the day after all that). It was rough, since we had merciless sun in 90 degree (fahrenheit) weather and went from 10am to 4pm, basically. There were plenty of breaks in there and I encouraged everyone to hydrate and rest as needed, but I think several of us wound up with mild heat exhaustion despite my best efforts to keep everyone rested and hydrated (I am one of the people who had it, so clearly I was not pushing people enough). Still, we got it all moved and into my apartment. We then all pretty much collapsed after pushing ourselves to make sure that myself, my sister, and my friend had places to sleep that night. It was a rough evening.
Continue readingMeandering Thoughs About Apartment Hunting And Moving
As I’ve buried myself more and more deeply into apartment hunting (a task that requires daily effort given how quickly places are getting snapped up), it has been interesting to collect data and try to figure out the trends that I’m seeing. Sure, I’ve only been at it for about two weeks as of writing this (which is hardly a conclusive amount of data), but most of this stuff has held true throughout, to the point where I’m already making decisions based on it and seeing those assumptions pay off. Not in a huge way, unfortunately, since I still haven’t found a place to live, but in ways that are validating of my process and that make my life a bit easier (since it largely amounts to having an easier time winnowing the chaff). Now, I can get a decent scan of new apartments and an evaluation of which to contact in about fifteen minutes, across my four main sites.
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