A day’s work

The day is well and truly over, but as always I still don’t feel I’ve done enough to deserve sleep.  Whose expectations am I trying to fill – mine, or somebody else’s? 

Nothing is good enough.  One crisis over and the next seventeen loom over me.  Not writhing in pain today, but I can barely walk, and I look in horror at my rapidly deforming feet.  There seems to be no money, and no energy.  Money for clothes, or the physio, not both.  I can’t fit into last summer’s clothes – I’ve gained too much weight.  Can’t lose it because I can’t exercise.  Can’t exercise because I need a physio.  Physio it is then.  And in rags.  If only I could earn a bit of money, and resolve this pathetic situation. 

Meanwhile, I have not done enough to call it a day yet.  Perhaps I never will. 

I’m remembering when I was a child, before I learnt the sense of obligation.  Kindy, where I didn’t line up for the daily reading homework for a whole three months.  Why?  Why not?  It had gotten boring, and I wasn’t learning anything any more.  First grade, I stopped taking maths homework home.  Decided I didn’t like it.  People were horrified that I could even imagine I had a choice in the matter.  How did I end up committed to so many musts and ought to’s?  Maybe they’re no-one else’s expectations, maybe they’re just mine.  The things I can’t live without.  The things that make life feel livable.  And I never do succeed in satisfying those requirements, do I?