Don’t get me wrong, I love a good go on a teeter-totter. The playground levers that are all the fun of a swing AND the pusher gets a ride too. Amazing.
However, teeter-totters are always in motion. You can bang against the ground at the bottom or, after quickly passing through neutral, be nearly flung off at the top.
It’s exciting! It is somewhat predictable as what goes up must come down. You need 2 to play.
It’s dynamic. There is no moment of not moving. Whee?
UGH. I WANT OFF!
This metaphor is getting as tired as my lower back this morning.
I have been searching for why the phrase “work-life balance” really chaps my ass and I think it’s this idea of equilibrium.
That, somehow, if one is smart enough, disciplined enough and cheerful enough you will attain calm equanimity and an orderly life.
Life has no interest in order. It is entropy.
“Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty.”
It takes a significant amount of energy to establish and preserve order.
Work
My paid work is all about organizing, analyzing and maintaining an orderly business with people, processes and technology. It requires precisely 7.5 hours 5 days a week. let’s bump that to 8 hours for commute/powering up ye olde laptop etc.
Sleep
I’m in bed 8 hours a night chasing, hoping, begging for more than 6 hours of sleep.
Life
That leaves 5 days a week with 8, uh, not unspoken for but possibly less structured time and 2 days a week with glorious 16 hour days.
Ready Player 2
Ok, so not all that time is available or useful. For example, at 6 am I zombie shuffle to my chair where Michel ply’s me with coffee. He follows that with a smoothie. Sometimes we talk. It’s a minimum of 90 minutes before I am at full function.
Sweet Mother of God, let me sit
On weekends I could just sit until 11.
Just.
Sit.
Breathe.
Think.
Rest.
Those unstructured weekend mornings are rare. More often than not we stick to our daily routine of shower, dress, walk the dog.
Weekdays that walk is roughly 30 minutes. On weekends it could be as long as 90. We have the more time, after all.
Bikey-bike
It’s summer here and that means Michel and I have cycling goals. So lately we leave on our separate ways to ride.
Different paces.
Different goals.
Divide and conquer.
We meet up by lunchtime, sweaty and hungry. We laugh, swap stories then off to our other things.
Single Player Mode
Michel is taking courses on AI. Roughly 15 hours of his non-paid work time is currently devoted to that. His paid work takes more of his day too, more like 10 hours during the week and often a half day on the weekend.
Keeping entropy at bay
Outside of his work, he commits to laundry, dishes, cleaning, garbage and recycling. I’m so glad I live with a feminist.
I focus on groceries, cooking, gardening, house repairs and some cleaning/tidying.
That is a lot to balance
Ok forget the old school lever teeter-totter. My life is a new fangled multi axel device requiring many people. It’s a Rube-Goldberg machine.
Deep dive focus vs MVP
My brain craves and thrives in deep dive focus. I practically orgasm at the thought of four hours working in my gardens.
The sheer joy.
The quiet.
The time to process the whirlwind of a week.
But it’s mostly done in 5 and 10 minute moments. It’s about to rain, quick, pull the crabgrass out of a tiny corner.
Back from a bike ride, water while cooling down.
Good lord, are those aphids?
So my garden is always 1 weekend away from awesome because once it gets to a minimum viable product (MVP) I need to shift to another aspect of my life.
I get to have one truly good thing
Every year 1 thing excels while other things wither on the vine (yes I’m looking at you cherry tomatoes of woe)
Right now my cycling is going great! MS Bike Tour fundraising is at my all time best. WAHOO!
The list of other things, like time spent with friends, household tasks…they have taken a hit.
I know I’ll shift my focus and swing wildly through neutral and deep dive into knitting or beading or breadmaking or…you get the idea.
Life is chaos, all hail Cthulhu!
I’m writing this post mere minutes before it is due. I’ll probably prep a few more posts to make a couple weeks easier.
Or not.
I may just jump on my bike or clean the fish tank or wash the windows or…
But I’ll definitely not be doing paid work stuff! Or sleeping. But honestly I’m never sleeping. GAH.
