Time Enough at Last

Today I woke up at 6:45 to go for my daily run. After I ran, I took a shower and proceeded to enjoy my daily “relax” time before I left for work at 8:30. After work (which is only a couple of hours on Friday mornings), I went grocery shopping and stopped by my boss’s house on the way home. When I got home, I made Brian a pretty sweet shrimp stir fry and then set about to clean ALL the things. Bed made, dishwasher emptied, floors swept, laundry (which I had put in before work) folded… the whole gamut. I made two pounds of meatloaf so that when I don’t have time to cook on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday Brian can still have a good meal. This cooking session was accompanied with the idea that I would make him more meals on Saturday and Sunday to ensure that I can be cooking-free those days I’m busy. When Brian got home, I cooked him some chicken and made him a bomb chicken and egg and lunch meat and cheese and lettuce and spinach salad. After eating a bowl of cereal, I got ready for work and at 4:30 headed to my janitor job. I got home around 9:00 and went to the gym with Brian for (another) work out.

And now I’m reminded of a line from Coming Up for Air, the oft-forgotten George Orwell book I’m reading (recommendation courtesy of Vic Bobb). The narrator has just spent pages relating his love of fishing and then confesses that he hasn’t been fishing since he was sixteen years old. He notes, “In this life we lead… we don’t do the things we want to do… There’s time for everything except the things worth doing.” I’m not sure anyone knows how true that is more than I do. With my compulsive inability to relax, I am constantly missing out on life and on doing what I want to do. I still haven’t made it down to check out the local library. I still haven’t watched that movie I’ve been meaning to because, well, it’s a foreign film which would mean I’d have to read the subtitles (wait for the rest of this explanation before judging!), and the constant focus on the screen required by that means I can’t multitask while watching it. I’ve had a hankering to make homemade granola that I just haven’t got around to making yet.

So these are my assignments this weekend. I am relaxing. I am not thinking (too much!) about grad school. I am not going to feel pressured to do things I don’t really want to do. I will watch a movie by myself, and maybe even make popcorn. I will bake granola. I will walk down to the library just to check it out. I will take a break from all the silly things that seem to demand my attention, and I will focus my energy on the things I want to do, the things actually worth doing.