bluelander | 8 hours for what I can't (Reply)

Had kind of a rough one yesterday. Had to go to the grocery store after work, which meant I got home at 19h00 instead of 17h00. Those two hours on the bus and at the store put a huge dent in my executive function. I don't think people who drive cars understand just how much harder every aspect of life is for people who use public transit.

You know the old labor slogan "8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will"? Well for me, "rest" has to be put in a different category than "sleep". I need 7½-8 hours of sleep a night just to function as a person, just to be able to work. But I also need rest, time to convalesce and let my brain recover and just think. I've never been someone who can get off work and spend the next 8 hours doing things until it's time for bed. Whether this is part of my neurodivergence or a PTSD thing or just part of my human condition is hard to say. But if I don't get 3-4 hours of rest, preferably uninterrupted, it takes a huge toll on the rest of my life. Last night I couldn't get an adequate amount of rest. When I get home at 19h00 I basically have 4 hours until I need to get to bed if I want to get 8 hours of sleep. And I couldn't use all that time to rest because I have other responsibilities as a married adult. I managed to get to bed by 23h30, which would've been about 7½ hours of sleep, but I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and had a hard time getting back to sleep. So I didn't get adequate rest or sleep, and I'm going to take it easy at work today.

Even when I get home at 17h00, that only leaves me 6 hours, which when you factor in rest and responsibilities doesn't leave me any time for self-actualization. So I have to steal time for self-actualization from work whenever I can. My therapist has more or less signed off on the need to engage in "time theft" to keep myself sane and as happy as possible under the circumstances.

"Time theft" in my case means figuring out ways to be super efficient at my job, so I can get all my work done in less time than they expect me to need, and then use the leftover time for what I will. It's not ideal, because I have to be discreet—I can't just set my laptop up on my desk and get to work, because people would see me and realize something unusual is going on. Phones are generally safe, and as long as I carefully manage my time and don't fall behind on job duties, I can write these journal entries, or work on downpour games, or read a book. Or play a couple levels of picross. Or post some jokes on fedi.

It's not ideal, because I have to do things in short bursts throughout the day, and it makes long-term projects especially difficult, but I try to be grateful for what I have. A lot of people are forced to work in dehumanizing environments where they're not allowed to so much as look at their phone, the kind of real jobs where they're told, with vile sincerity, "if you have time to lean you have time to clean". I have a comfortable bullshit desk job and I try not to take it for granted. If I had to work a real job it's very likely that I wouldn't be here today. But it's still hard not to grieve for the portion of my life that's been stolen from me.

Anyway, that's enough self-actualization for today. I have 6 hours to go and I'm going to try to get as comfortable as possible and listen to podcasts and work as slowly as I can get away with. Maybe I can find a little rest in the cracks of the day