all or nothing

by rantywoman

Although I’m happy to have a little summer vacation and thankful that I’m able to tie up all loose ends before returning to a full-time job (if I get one), I can project into the future well enough to know that six weeks into ten-hour days (including lunch and commute time), I may well be exhausted and miserable again.

I have learned some lessons from this break. One is that I can still get depressed and low-spirited despite being free of the constraints of a job. The other is that I don’t entirely mind working– it’s a way to give me my life some structure and to make social connections (although who knows how I might be able to organize my life if I knew I never had to take a job again).

I just wish it didn’t feel like all or nothing. Like I have to have all my time and energy sucked into work or be unemployed. I’d have a pretty good attitude toward the idea of going back to, say, four seven-hour days per week, or about thirty hours.

Someday perhaps I can make that a reality.