Sometime on Thursday

That’s what I live for. I can hardly wait for Thursday to arrive and by the beginning of Saturday, there are times when the dread of a new work week begins to creep up on me already. I try to put it out of my mind and most of the time I’m successful. During the summer I can spend practically a whole day watching cardinals, finches, sparrows, hummingbirds, squirrels, chipmunks and the like. I try to do as much as I can of what I do enjoy. I feel like I’m slipping into a bit of a depression. It’s complicated. Today on my way into work, tears started welling up. I was (and still am) SO VERY TIRED. I’m at the point in life where these rotating 12-hour shifts are killing me. Yet I feel like I could even manage that until I can retire, but now every other week (on my week of nights) I work jump shift so that by Thursday I’m practically working the day shift. I feel used up. Drained. Decades of pounding cement floors has netted me 2 foot surgeries, back surgery, achilles tendonitis, bursitis, arthritis in my feet and hands and probably a few more ailments yet to be discovered. I was reading a WebMD article about shift work. The World Health Organization states: “Shift work is probably carcinogenic.” That in itself was enough for me, and validation of what I’ve felt for a long time. When I was a 20-something young lady what did I know? It was a great paying full time job that offered a pension and medical insurance for retirees. I bought and paid for the dream. Worked hard, paid my dues and looked forward to being able to retire at 57. Here I am, pushing 60 with nothing left but my falling and rising (mostly falling) 401 and SS to look forward to and a tiny fraction of a pension from before my company got bought out and oh by the way and of course, if I do retire at 62 I can expect to be penalized plus having no idea how I will afford health insurance. So all summer I take pictures. Pictures of my dogs in the gardens, pictures of the birds on a wire above my gardens and pictures of chipmunks and squirrels scampering below the gardens. I take pictures of the gardens in every stage from early spring ground breaking to summer in full bloom. From sometime on Thursday to Sunday I spend as much time as I can outside, or at least doing something I enjoy, oftentimes feeling guilty for ignoring housework. But it’s never enough.

You’d think after a years absence I could come up with a better entry (more uplifting and positive?) than this but for the summer of 2013, this is where I’m at.