Jun 19

 Spent the weekend not doing a lot. Resting. Given I have pushed my trip to Oxford back a week, I didn't need to squeeze in tasks anymore.

Which is a good thing. Pretty sure I had burned a bit too hard last week.

Today I decided to tackle sorting the server out. Get my server working post router change. And then slowly disassemble it. Pull it out. Clean it up. And put it back together again bare bones before moving onto installs.

I managed to do all of that. But it killed me. I just can't do shit anymore. My lack of capability and stamina is shockingly bad. Once upon a time I used to crawl all around PCs, servers, bits and bobs. Leaning over. Under desks. Now I can't do it. Leaning over a PC for a minute makes everything screamingly hurt. Just tinkering for 30 minutes starts to make me feel tired. Ill. It's like hitting a wall.

I took several breaks during the process and at various points I was gasping for breath, back screaming in pain, feeling nauseous. Ill. Ok. Nice.

I don't understand really what has happened to me. Just that I can't do shit anymore. The first thing is the tiredness. Push at it. You feel ill. Pain flares. I don't know. Perhaps I am just chronically out of shape. But then...

I went swimming again today. Up and down the pool. Really getting back into the swing of it. I managed a leisurely 600m without really trying. Active for an hour. No ill effects.

I have no answers. The pool is cool. Chilly if you sit for a length of time. Perhaps that's the difference. Making my blood vessels narrow. Soothing inflammation. I don't know.

Standing in the kitchen for more than 2 minutes becomes difficult. Exhaustion instantly flicks in. I want to sit. Then lie down.

Give me 20 minutes to preferably nap and it passes.

? ? ?

I circle around and around pondering answers. I have an annoying habit when I can't find something. I will look again, and again, at the very same place I have just looked. Like I can't quite believe it's not there. I will open a drawer and look, close it. Then think. And open it again and look again. And close it. And then do it again. I know, somewhere, that this is stupid. But I can't leave it alone.

I'm a bit like that with the whole health thing. Around and around. The signs always flag the same things. Cardio. Failing heart. Fucked nerves. Fucked blood vessels. Fucked gastro. Post virals. Around and around I go, as each bit flares, waxes and wanes. No answers. Just conjectures. And a maddening incapability to find an answer - and no help from a disinterested out of their depth health service.

Ho hum.

In any case. Despite the enormous difficulties. And no shortage of pain. Today I have been productive. The old server sits, emptied, spanky clean and ready to be installed. It's huge. Gorgeous. Heavy. Top of the line tower case. Its build oozes quality and precision. A pretty penny all by itself without any hardware. It does start to make me question what the fuck I am doing giving away such a lovely piece of kit. Then again. Charity. I am sure they will make more use of it than me. That it's a Ferrari and not an old banger is just icing on the cake.

And I also got my excercise in with swimming.

Not a bad day for the complete disaster that I am. I wouldn't want to do it again. Like sticking your hand in the fire. The memory of the pain lingers.

Perhaps I should just give up on doing any kind of shit. Just. Stick to what I can do. And the rest is stuff I could once do, but no longer can. It feels like I have aged 20 years too early. The candle has burned from both ends and thrown in the fire to boot.

It's stuff like this. How much I struggle doing a basic thing. Like standing. That reinforces the feeling I am on a limited time span. And when the troughs happen. And I can't get out of bed. And it really does feel like my last breath. It all makes sense.

Despite that. Stubbornly. I seem to stay alive. So far. It continually surprises me. Many a night as I curl up in the dark to sleep, I whisper to let this be the last night, and just let me die peacefully in my sleep. It doesn't fill me with fear. Just. Peace. Please. Let me go.

But I'm still here. By and large not enjoying myself. Ha.

Anywho.

I've kept up my swimming since last week. Going every other day ish. And it's quickly gotten easier again. Barely doing one length at a time. To doing two. To regularly doing two. To doing four. To speeding through lengths. And then chilling out. I find it intriguing how quickly you can lose your fitness, but also, how long it takes to truly disappear. The memory of all that swimming last year seems to have stuck around in me despite the time that has passed. And I have improved quicker than I did last year when working from scratch. But at the same time. On starting again, I had lost most of that fitness level.

An interesting set of variables.

As I'm now in my second week of time off work, I think I'm finally beginning to properly unwind. The mania of the ever spinning wheel has dimmed. Thoughts of work have ghosted away. And the stress of it all is fading. On the flip side of the coin I have found my interest starting to rekindle for making games. Art. Stuff. It's only a flicker of a flame. But my brain has started turning again on more creative things. And I find myself looking stuff up in preparation to do something. Background reading. Thinking of ideas. Which as of a month ago had entirely burned out.

I must remind myself, that using all my skills and capabilities to make other people rich, at this point of my life, is a really shit thing to be doing with my time. Particularly as those people can't do any of the things I do. They need me. But generally, reward me and treat me like the serf that I am. It is of course the absolute standard work relationship that almost everyone labours under in our late stage capitalist world. But I should know better. I know how it works. But my need to help out do a good job, and appeals to my better nature drag me back. I need to stop letting people take advantage of me. And if what I want to do is focus on my own stuff. Then I should do that. And not just complete yet another piece of bullshit fucking work on a bullshit arbitrary time scale to let someone else get a gold star.

And besides. My powers of getting shit done despite every imaginable hurdle and shit work environment or process you can throw at me are waning. Old. Tired. Burned out. Broken. I can no longer burn as I once did. I can still do it. At tremendous cost. But really. I am past that. Declining. Slowly per season.

What do you want to do with your dwindling energy Johnny ? Keep dancing the same shitty steps to the same shitty demanding people to glorify and enrich themselves at your benefit. Or amuse yourself for once. Do something for yourself.

The answer is obvious.

Carrying it out however, requires me to set hard boundaries that I am very bad at setting in the first place, and shit at maintaining.

Ho well.