My therapist says I'm more tired today than she's ever seen me. Here are some reasons my brain says I cannot sleep:
My boss might lose faith in my ability to manage projects. Something important might go wrong with my project (Inkhaven), and I am the only person on-call who has the context to fix it all. If I screw it up he might no longer be willing to give me big projects like this.
Annoying social drama. There was one yesterday, that made me anxious and unable to relax until it was dealt with. I had just come out of a massage supposed to relax me, and yet I was immediately un-relaxed for a few hours.
I associate being in bed with checking Reddit/YouTube. Whoops. Perhaps I should have better spaces to do this, so that I never do it in bed? Alas, I live in a single room with a bed and a desk, this is my private space. I have a hard time just going to sleep in bed.
There are 50-60 people on campus who I am responsible for. When people are around they ask you questions and to solve their problems. All. The. Time. Being seen is an invitation for you to solve a problem. Eye contact is an invitation for you to solve a problem. Saying "hi" is an invitation for you to solve a problem. (This is my job and normally I am happy to do it, but it's hard to turn it off.)
There are many Slack messages waiting for me. I guess this is on me for having a habit of hitting slack inbox-zero and an org philosophy of Slack Maximilism.
I said I'd sing a song in the open mic tonight. Alas, I was looking forward to that. It's my favorite song I know. Well, I've had to cancel.
My mum wants to catch up with me. I did fly her half way across the world to be here, so that's understandable. Fortunately I am keeping her here for 2 months so it's fine to say no sometimes.
I'm having a depressive spiral. Given my lack of sleep, everything else in my life looks worse and like a problem I cannot overcome and will feel shame for failing at. It helps to remember that I feel this way substantially because I'm tired and not because the things are as bad as they seem. Though I am indeed pulling to mind the worst issues that I am facing, and also some of my insecurities being exposed/tested.
Because I need to make plans for a few specific people who are leaving Inkhaven tomorrow. Two residents will be leaving for Thanksgiving and not returning; and one contributing writer will leave in the morning. I want to make sure that the residents have a nice sendoff, and that the contributing writers' time is well-spent.
Because I have to write a blogpost else I have failed out of Inkhaven. I am probably the person at Inkhaven with the most work to do during Inkhaven, but it isn't good for the leader of Inkhaven to fail the daily blogging challenge, so he should figure out a nice short post to write that he can publish to keep up with the challenge.