branded on my feet
Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand, but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming
~ Bob Dylan - Mr. Tambourine Man
I have been exhausted all week. I don't know why I'm so tired — maybe it's all the early morning dogwalking appointments, the interviews I didn't want to do, or me being weak — but I can feel the exhaustion in my bones. Just getting out of bed in the morning feels like an impossible task. (It's making me consider going back to therapy, but the thought of looking for new therapist on top of everything I already have makes me sick.)
The darned Goldendoodle who stayed at my house last week finally left late last night, and thank Frith for that! He wasn't that bad, outside of being rather aggressive to other dogs and men (including me at times), but I'm really glad he's gone. Watching over four separate dogs in the last week made it clear that pets are absolutely not for me. I still love animals, but I can't tolerate the mental load of needing to look after another living thing around the clock with no end. A week already bled me dry; what would a decade do?
Fortunately, it's finally Sunday afternoon, the only time during the weekend I can take a breather. Except this week that breath is more like a gasp because I need to finish that project my tutoring company dumped in my lap. I'm not having a good time working on it. They want a demo by Tuesday morning and I have jury duty tomorrow, so something's got to give.
I go stir-crazy if I'm at home for too long, so earlier today after my last lesson of the weekend I went out to shop for a bit. I've largely weaned myself off my habit of browsing clothing aisles out of boredom, but I thought a little change of scenery would be good for my head after such a taxing week.
Outside the store I saw a duo of buskers (who I assume were father and daughter) playing electric violin and cello. A sign explained that they were doing it to make ends meet because they couldn't afford to pay rent. Sometimes I think we forget in my well-to-do suburb that this sort of financial hardship exists here too, and I found poignant that they were busking in front of a clothing store, a place where suburbanites like me go to find any reason to spend their money.
Seeing the buskers also reminded me how fortunate I am to be where I am today and how quickly everything could change. I lost my job last October, and while I luckily have a decent amount saved from the years I worked there, I wouldn't have been able to do that if I weren't living at home with my parents. Had it not been for them, losing my job might have meant choosing between rent and my medications.
Speaking of medications, last week I finally got to meet (over Zoom) the doctor in charge of the natural history study I'm participating in. She showed me the results of my genetic panel. The good news is that I don't have the mutated gene that's been known to cause my particular rare autoimmune disease. The bad news is that this means they've run out of ideas. This puts me in the 10% group of mystery patients for a disease that is already a one in a million chance. Lucky lucky me.
Nothing caught my eye at the shops, but I did treat myself to a new hat that arrived in the mail yesterday. It's a bucket hat made with a fabric sort of like terrycloth which I got to replace one I retired a while back. I utterly adore it. I've been flirting with it for more than a year: every time I passed by a hat store in New York last summer I'd go in to try it on in front of the mirror. It's the most expensive hat I've ever bought by a country mile, but it is also the only hat that genuinely sparks joy. I've been trying to focus on that these days, spending my money on things that will make me happy. Two concert tickets and a hat later, I'm knee-deep in the Marie Kondo kool-aid, but my wallet's been harder to convince.