I am writing the first part of this blog post today, Sunday, after a week where tiredness has sucked every sense of personality out of me. I will check back in on Wednesday before posting this to see how I am getting on.
Something Dawn O’Porter wrote on her Patreon recently really resonated with me. She said: ‘Today was hard. My energy levels were zero. My personality was zero. My willingness to at least try, was zero. I really struggled.’
One of the many things that I admire about NHS workers, with the horrific shift patterns, is their energy. Aside from their incredible knowledge and skill set, their energy and enthusiasm through it all is amazing.
Never have I seen a miserable nurse, a pissed off paramedic or an impatient Doctor. It’s just not in their nature.
This past week I have found that tiredness has overruled. I’m usually smiling, at work anyway. I have to be. I work with people. Nobody wants a misery guts making them a sandwich or helping them post a parcel. I usually feel energetic and enthusiastic to help even the nuisance customers. I have a lot of patience, on the outside, and I mean it when I say thank you. Last week this was not the case.
Nurses and doctors and everything in between are tired. Of course they are. They spend their working days saving lives. I never see them crumbling to this, outwardly showing how they inwardly feel.
This week I vow to find my personality again.
To not let tiredness win. To overrule and be happy. To smile even if inside I am screaming. To find energy in any way that I can. To appreciate everything and to not put much time into negativity.
Monday arrived and I still had a bee in my bonnet. I was not having it and I couldn’t shake my negative way of being. Conversations seemed meaningless. I couldn’t even try. Everything got to me and I wondered if I would ever be the same again.
Gradually the day got better and the large gin at the end of it gave me some upbeat energy but anger still filled me. Mostly.
Tuesday came and it was like I’d been drip fed amphetamines through the night. It was lovely.
I woke up with so much more energy, ready to converse with even the slowest, dullest in society. I was working better, my brain made more sense and putting the increasing numbers of orders together didn’t feel like solving an algebra equation.
I was joking, genuinely laughing, really smiling and not getting down about tiny little nagging things. These brushed over me like the wind. I didn’t even meditate!!!!
Of course the day wasn’t perfect. Nothing ever is. Frustration came in ebs and flows and I began to think that over-tiredness and being overworked was starting to get to us all.
Yet this was mixed with laughter. Meaningless, squiffy overtired laughter but so much laughter. I felt alive again.
Wednesday morning (today) has been welcomed with a much needed lie in, a read, a slow get up and a hearty breakfast (Spaghetti hoops on toasts counts as hearty in these desperate times).