"...life is everything but work."

I was messaging back and forth with a friend from Germany when he wrote this:“Em Concerning your job.. you should definitely get some time for yourself. Life is more then just work. Actually life is everything but work.”

You see, I practically work eight days a week at my two jobs and. never. ever. stop. period. Even when I do have days off, they are often occupied by things on my to-do list, be it errands, working out, or catching up with friends. Everything takes time. Time is everything. In my logical-reasoning(possibly-self-destructive)mind, I know that time is the one thing I can not control. I can control my actions, reactions, goals, nourishments, education, all that good stuff- but time is relentless, and waits for noone, so I’d better make the most of what I’ve got.

So I work hard, play hard, reasoning to myself that at least I’m making the effort to have fun rather than let my work consume me. I know it is wearing down my body, and short-circuiting my brain a bit because I have been making uncharacteristic mistakes that make me look like a ditz.

All of the brainless comments that slip out in conversation are usually a consequence to having too many thoughts lingering around- not leaving enough space for them to properly formulate sentences. Hell, my closest friends know exactly what I’m saying when my brows furrow slightly from strained thought, and then the words come out in a series of sound effects, silent gestures, and fragmented grammar. Otherwise, I like to feel that I can articulate my opinions effectively, and appreciate when others can do the same.

But between the lost hours of sleep and exhaustion as of late, the feebleminded comments are more frequent (and even less voluntary). I have lost things. I have found things. But mostly I have become frustrated internally because I know it isn’t like me... because I know the mistakes I have made don’t make sense.

For instance.. I had worked eleven days straight, one of which was a double. At the end of the eleventh day I went to a friend’s going away party. There was a fiasco that night involving the death of my cellular phone, a wrong address, pouring rain, and somehow still making it to the bar after I had arrived home, soaked through to my skivvies -unmotivated. The next morning I got up early to go to Hyde Park, NY on a very necessary trip. Not much sleep was acquired, but I still managed to get up early the day I was to return-stopped in Manhattan for lunch-transferred at the appropriate stations to make it back to Philadelphia just in time for work. I didn’t even get to go back to my apartment first. It continues- the next day was going to be April 1st. I wanted to pull a prank, so as I closed down the pastry station at “Job 1" I left empty pans on the line. The coworker who was going to open the next morning is on the shorter side of life, so I even went the next step and put some items up in high places.. like on top of the microwave which was on top of the shelf, which was already out of reach for her. I thought it was funny. The next morning she text me, and we shared a laugh. I went about my business and got ready for work at “Job 2". I was banging out the prep list, making progress, and setting up for service when I received another text from her inquiring when I was going to get there. Shortly thereafter, one of the managers at “Job 1" text me, asking if everything was alright- if I was en route. I laughed to myself, thinking they were trying to pull one over on me, and text him back to let him know that I was at my other job... I stopped laughing when I realized I had just worked five hours at the wrong establishment- and was then an hour late for “Job 1". I had to, more embarrassed than ever, admit my mistake and high-tail it out of there, and arrive in the wrong uniform, flustered, and foolish. I was truly the April fool. To capo off the night, it turned out I had forgotten my keys and wallet at home in my apartment..since I had hastily emptied my bag of things from my two day trip to NY...since I hadn’t had a moment to stop.

I hate not making sense.

Getting back to that quote.. So my friend got me thinking- dwelling particularly on that last line, “...life is everything but work.”

Practically all I do is work. Does that mean I practically do not live? Has my obsessive concept of time and productivity led me to a strange sort of suicide? How can I reason to myself that I need to slow down? Why should I slow down?-I need the money to pay bills, loans, and fund the anti-anorexia campaign for my stomach.

The uncertainty will hang in the air like the flower petals which waft about the city in the spring breeze, time forgeing forward.