On fatigue

(This will be short for obvious reasons) Have you ever felt so bone-crunchingly tired that it didn’t matter anymore if you rested or not? Didn’t matter anymore if you drank six cups of coffee or none at all? I think I’ve arrived, but I can’t tell and I don’t care. There is a winter storm on the horizon and I don’t care. I should go to bed and get some sleep but I don’t care about that either. I get the feeling that the semester was just one week too long, or maybe the Thanksgiving break was a couple of days too short. Today, it seemed like I ran from one thing to another, and this was my quiet day. Tomorrow will be worse with an early meeting and two classes to teach. And it isn’t even a physical fatigue that bothers as much as the mental fatigue that hangs over me like a cold, wet blanket. If I have to write another official whatever, I may just scream, or worse, I won’t say anything at all. Mental fatigue is the real villain in this folktale. I like the Christmas season, but it seems like so many things pile up during these first two weeks of December that I end up hating December anyway. It’s not that I feel out-of-control, but it does feel like I would have to make a huge effort to reach “out-of-control.” And tomorrow is only Thursday–where’s the weekend? On the other hand, what has already happened to my week? I had all sorts of good intentions when Monday started. I’m too tired to figure any of this out, and I imagine, dear reader, that you are too tired to read any further.