A friend indeed..
To say I’m quite busy at work at the minute is, I am confident in saying, quite the underestimate. I put in about 15 hours unpaid overtime last week, worked my arms into an RSI frenzy, ate lunch at my desk whilst reading and writing email, and compiled urgent list after urgent list on the train every morning. From about 2.30pm on the Monday I was already longingly casting my imagination forward to the Friday night when I could (mostly) sign off for a couple of days, and do absolutely *nothing*.
But then things started populating the weekend space. Invites were issued forth from people who wished to spend time with me. Afternoon tea, rogue comedy gigs and birthday parties were all mooted. But all I wanted was to lie down in a dark room and snooze the weekend away. I really wasn’t up for doing stuff. I was tired, dammit! I’d spent all week rushing from pillar to post and I didn’t want to do it on the weekend as well.
But a smarter man than I convinced me that I only thought I didn’t want to do these things, and that maybe time with friends is worth its weight in weekend snoozing, and then some. So we had a rogue comedy gig in our sitting room and cooked dinner for both comedian and audience afterwards on Saturday. And earlier today I went to afternoon tea in central London with a group of friends and then helped another celebrate his birthday.
The smarter man than I was right. As I write this I am still tired. Really, quite tired. But, and this is crucial - it’s a different kind of tired. It’s not an I’ve-been-working-for-eleven-hours-there’s-no-food-in-the-house-and-I-need-to-put-a-wash-on tired. It’s more a my-belly-hurts-from-laughing-and-eating-too-much-cake kind of tired. I’ve always thought that I must have two stomachs - one for dessert and one for everything else. In my world when my main stomach is full there is still room for dessert. And the more I think about it I think that, at least for me, tired might be the same. There is no denying I’m tired of working too hard but give me some friendship and I’ll gladly fill my other belly..
