#2527R

It’s been such a long time since I’ve written here. I feel pretty overwhelmed with just everyday life and work. On paper of course I shouldn’t feel that way. Things are fine. I have a job that’s not too intense, with some flexibility in when I come and leave. I don’t make a lot, but I do make enough to cover the bills and have some left for having an expensive coffee every once in a while. In June I’ve went out to photograph protests a few times, went abroad for a couple days and have even taken the month off from my second job.

And yet. Coming home at the end of the day I feel exhausted, I don’t have the bandwidth to really talk or think about other things. I miss my solo café sessions where I would sip on a capuccino and think or journal or edit photos for a few hours in the middle of the day. I think it’s not the total amount of work and obligations, but the number of little things I need to get into and get done quickly. I am prepping for a group exhibition with my photo collective and even that feels like a chore.

I’m in project mode or sprint mode constantly. That’s nothing new, I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. This is what I’m used to and also I think this is what comes naturally to me. I have a project, I know that I need to push until it’s done, and then I’m free from it. It’s been years since I’ve had a regular job and even then it didn’t work well for me. With a regular “dayjob” the paradigm is different. You don’t need to push towards the finish line, because there is no finish line, the job just keeps going on. You just stop and then pick up the next day. That’s not a mode I’m familiar with and I think that might be part of the problem: I stay in the office longer than I need to, because I have the subliminal sense that if I give the task one last push, I’ll be done with it and will be free. But that’s not the case. I’ll need to go to work the next day just the same, and there’ll be a new task waiting for me.

This is not sustainable like this. I need to find a way to shift my perspective, to approach work more as maintenance: something you do every day, on repeat, something that never finishes. I need to be able to just get up and go home without feeling guilty, knowing that I’ll be back the next day and that whether I finish something today or tomorrow makes no difference.

Well, anyways.