Weak Days

The exhaustion is setting in earlier and earlier lately. Sometime around Wednesday or Thursday or, perhaps, it's just that it never goes away.

In the mornings I daydream about not getting off the train. I'd let the doors shut and stay seated, riding all the way downtown and back. Back and forth, all day long. I imagine what would happen once 10 rolls around and someone notices that I'm not just late. I wonder if they'd call or anxiously check messages to see something was overlooked--a forgotten vacation day or doctor's appointment. There's a thrill in that wish. I wish, I wish... Instead I walk off and up and down the long corridor, dodging slow-moving tourists, idling shoppers. Up the stairs again, through the doors, a fumble with my pass, the escalator, the elevator, the pass again. Just getting through the door is an obstacle.

I'm usually not ready to say "good morning." I prefer to walk in quietly, slip into my chair and type out my various logins. The first hello breaks into the silence of my train thoughts and I realize that it has already started; for the next nine hours the day is no longer mine.

In the evening I take the local train. I like how it stretches out the journey, breaking it up into a dozen equal 10-block parts. I ignore the book on my lap and spend the time thinking. It's there that I realize how angry I am. It comes in waves that make my eyes burn and my throat scratch. I want to lash out at the stolen minutes, the car alarms, the part of my brain that's unable to calm itself down.

Plans make me tired. Dinners, parties, visiting friends; they carry the same weight as those hours at work. More things that I have to do...more time spent not doing what I want to do.

The weekend is gone long before it even begins.