That's why they don't call it a sparkly happy fun time...

When I first started my job, I felt completely overwhelmed. I was used to having TIME -- time to read, time to write, time to work out, time to cook a great dinner AND clean up afterwards, time to run out for coffee, time to grocery shop, time to take care of the pets, time to do laundry, time to clean the bathroom, time to vacuum, time to watch a good Yankee game, even if it ran into extra innings and wasn't over until well past midnight... in fact, some days I accomplished all of the above, and STILL woke up the next morning feeling well-rested and ready for another day.

And then it changed, literally overnight. All of a sudden, that great TIME was gone... my bed called to me much earlier than a bed SHOULD start beckoning its owner, and I was thrown back into the full-time working world, inheriting an office that was so disorganized I didn't even know where to start. I spent weeks stressing out over the haphazard condition of folders and binders and computer files and drawers full of whoknowswhat, and even now, I'm really not certain that I have it all figured out (where ARE those 2008 media clips, anyway???).

At first, all I could see was the long term -- every Monday morning, I'd drag myself out of bed and get ready, eventually heading out the door with my thermal mug of coffee, grasping it as if the cherished liquid inside could truly transform me into a happy, chipper optimist... but knowing that I still had FOUR DAYS of early-mornings-and-coffee-guzzling before I could sleep in (oh, perfect, precious sleep... how I love thee...). And it seemed too much to handle... if it was so hard to drag myself to work ONE day, how would I ever be able to do it for five days in a row??

And then I realized something -- there was nothing I could do about those five days. They would come and go, the same as every other week, and sooner or later the weekend would be upon us once more. Just like little Stephen Dedalus discovered in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man... "but one time it would come, because the earth moved round always." He was referring to Christmas vacation, but it works just as well for the weekend, too...

So instead of waking up every Monday morning wondering HOW I will get through the week, and how I'll be able to hop out of bed at 5:30 every day, and how I'll get the carpet vacuumed or the laundry finished or dinner cooked, or how on earth I'll be able to stay up past bed-beckoning time to watch the Yankees win the World Series and not fall asleep at work the next day, and how I'll ever get to that elusive point where I can turn the alarm OFF and just sleep until whenever -- I simply remind myself to get through TODAY. That's all I have to do today. I will deal with today TODAY, and tomorrow can wait for tomorrow. Otherwise it's just too overwhelming...

And hey, look -- I'm already finished with dreaded Monday! (And wow -- two posts in two days! I am on a blogging roll... :))