Life Update: I am not sick, but I am not okay either

I am struggling. I highly wish I’d gotten one of those weighted blankets before all of this started because they’re supposed to help with anxiety and mine is through the roof. I’m talking, sleep is pretty much not an option anymore, unless I down some Benadryl tablets. Those have always been great at knocking me out. I even started taking melatonin, the ten milligram ones, because the three milligram ones do absolutely nothing for me. Do I  wake up feeling drowsy? Yes! Do I sleep through the whole night? No! Four to six hours are better than zero though.

I am going to complain about something that I probably shouldn’t, because many people are finding themselves without work right now. My governor deemed homecare workers essential, therefore I must go to work. Which, yes I am one of the people privileged enough to still go to work, and yes I am getting a paycheck, but it also sucks. I am extremely glad I’m not a healthcare worker, but I am also not happy that I am a homecare worker. I work with two boys on the autism spectrum. They are lower functioning and can’t understand why they can’t go to school right now. Due to this, they’re having more behavioral issues, which means I now work forty-hour work weeks. I’m extremely thankful I’m not allowed to go over forty hours a week. Believe me, I feel terrible for the people who can’t go to work right now, but I also simultaneously wish I wasn’t one of them.  

Besides working forty-hour work weeks, I also have five online classes. Which is difficult, but manageable. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself when I realize I have to get done 18 assignments for the week. On top of that, I’m emotionally and mentally drained because I’ve been tugged on, and pulled at, and asked the same three questions, five hundred times within the last seven hours. By the way, that is not an exaggeration. I am exhausted. I do homework, go to work, come home, do more homework, sometimes sleep, and between all of that I eat. Nothing healthy though or anything substantial, unless someone else makes it because I don’t have the time or energy for that.

Mostly I’m sad, because before all of this, I was one of those peoples who genuinely enjoyed their job. This week we read about Branum, and he talks about how he felt when he found comedy. Branum writes, “It was wonderful, it was everything I’d hoped it would be. It was a balm for my soul, it was a give-and-take with the audience. It was sublime” (215). This is the way I felt when I’d first started my job over a year ago. I felt like I’d finally found my true calling, because I was amazing at it. My job is rewarding, and I work with two amazing adolescents. However, lately, it’s been causing me more stress than happiness, because I never know what I’m headed into. I hope and pray for good days, because we used to have ninety-five percent good days. Now we have thirty-five percent good days. Currently, my job just causes me more stress and anxiety than I already had before. It means I have less time to do the eighteen assignments per week, than I had when I was working twenty-five hours per week. It means I’m risking getting sick, and bringing the virus home to my sixty-four-year-old grandfather, who only has one lung. It means I’m consistently as anxious as I am exhausted.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, well Brittany if it’s that bad why don’t you just quit? I know because it had crossed my mind too. Only I can’t quit, it’s not really an option. I mean technically I can, but I’m expected to slowly wean myself out of their lives when I leave this job, to make the transition easier. I would have to actually be heartless to quit right now during a time when there’s already so much confusion for them. Not to mention the fact that my coworker would be left to pick up the pieces, and if it were the other way around, and he did that to me, I would have a strong urge to hit him with my car. So, I’m going to continue going to work, and suck it up, and stop complaining about it. Mostly, because I understand there are people who have it worse than me right now, but also because I know eventually it will get better. I hope you are not one of those people, and everyone in your life is healthy. I am also truly sorry for those of you who can’t work and need to. I hope you can soon.