Theme Songs

There's a new song out by James, a British band that hasn't released a new album in quite a while. I downloaded this song last week, and the chorus is permanently stuck in my head. It's there when I wake up, there when I'm lying in bed, trying to let go of my thoughts enough to fall asleep. It's there at random moments during the day:

"Hey Ma, the boy's in body bags, coming home in pieces..."

This week has been really hard.

Strangely, it's all about work. I know I would be feeling the same even if school hadn't started this week. But I've been so incredibly stressed out that I can't sleep, barely eat, and constantly feel sick to my stomach. I'm sure I'm giving myself more gray hairs. Yesterday I had to admit to myself that I might miss my deadline on Monday, which is a terribly hard thing for me to do. I have never missed a deadline before. Or at least, never missed a deadline that would have the impact that missing this one would have. (Note my use of the conditional. I am not resigned. I will work my ass off this weekend in the hopes that I can still make it.)

Part of the problem is that, while I blame myself and think of things I might have done differently a month ago (mainly changing the order in which I've worked on things so that I might have come up against this wall I'm currently facing earlier, thus giving myself more time to scale it), I am also, still, facing this wall. It's like, even if the weekend were a week long, I still wouldn't make my deadline because I just can't get over the wall. And because the project is still so in flux, the people on the side of the wall keep adding more rows of bricks.

I talked to my boss about all of this yesterday afternoon, and he very kindly (and very sympathetically) told me to get over it, stop thinking about should haves, and just do the best I can with what time I have left. After hanging up with him, I called a couple of people I work with for help, and they spent nearly two hours on the phone with me--late on a Friday afternoon--getting the things working that I needed in order to get on with things. They were incredibly generous, and I owe them each a big cake with candles on it. In essence, they gave me a ladder, and now I just need to climb it fast enough to reach the top before Monday. Last night I actually fell asleep pretty easily.

In class Friday morning, before receiving the ladder, I realized that I wasn't thinking about work at all. Class was like a much-needed vacation from stress. Sure, I have lots of reading I'm supposed to do before Tuesday, but I'll worry about that Monday night.

On my playlist on my iPod, I have the body bag song followed immediately by Dobie Gray's great "Drift Away".

"Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul..."

(God, I hope next week is better than this one.)