how long can i keep this up?

a month ago i was riding the needle on the gauge from tired through to weary. 5 weeks later and it's starting to nudge the red-line of "exhausted". for no sensible reason i can discern i'm pushing myself too hard again and it's getting to the point where i'm starting to lose my cool. no in the "getting hot under the collar and losing my temper" sort of way but in the "it's difficult to be cool, calm and collected when you're swaying on your feet with the blood draining out of your face trying desperately to not pass out until you get home... which won't be for another hour or so" variety.

on the surface of things i can say that
"there's a lot i want to get done" and
"i've made promises that i intend to honour" and
"there never are enough hours in the day"
but if you scratch that surface you'll find
"i've over-extended and over-committed myself" and
"i can't seem to put anything down" and
"i've injured myself, healing is taking a lot of energy and i've not allowed myself the time or physical resources to recover and while i'm completely cognisant of this i'm going to keep burning energy i don't have."

when i noticed that one it no longer surprised me that while i've been eating far more than i usually would over the last week and done very little real exercise i've managed to LOSE weight. ok, the result is good, but really, this means that the chemical energy i need to... you know, heal myself, is coming from what little fat reserves i have left rather than the food i've been cramming down my through which has, instead, been used to keep me moving.

yesterday was a little different. after weather a few nights which have involved a lack of sleep in the last week or so i decided that i'd go out and wear myself out. Rapunzel and i went out for a nice day together - a visit to the Art Gallery, then some shopping in Civic. 4 hours, most of them on my feet. i had to exhaust myself - tire myself out so that i could be sure that i'd sleep. unfortunately this also meant 4 hours of near-constant agony as my knee, leg and lower back protested the abuse. i was about ready for bed by 9PM and when i did finally fall asleep i slept for 7 hours straight. motherfucker did it hurt though.

today i've alternated between "fine" and "falling over". the exercise helped to loosen up my knee, and i'm spending more time walking unaided than with the cane, but i've found that i have a decent energy boost for an hour or so after i eat, then i'm spent again. part of this is the lack of low-GI food in my daytime diet at present, but a lot of it has to do with how quickly i'm burning through the fuel.

meanwhile i'm still running around like a mad chook. i have a 3-day weekend ahead of me which won't include my favourite distraction, so i might actually spend some time bumming around doing very little. the week i spent between jobs came and went too fast. a long weekend won't be enough, but hopefully it'll stave off the eventual collapse. hmm... i'm going to have to tell Work that i'm not going to participate in this weekend's Overtime. it was tempting to say yes, but i have the feeling that it'll just be tooo much.

what i really need to do is say "no" when someone asks whether i want to do something. i managed to bail on going to the pub with the boys. i didn't want to - a couple of beers with M and T would have been great, but half an hour or so out and i knew that one beer and i'd be passing out at the table. i'll have to make it up to them. i seem to have some sort of complex where if i CAN do something... build a computer, chisel the the tiles off a floor, set up a home network... i'll instantly agree and go off and do it... as if the ability to do some thing compells me to do said thing. if i say that i can do something then OBVIOUSLY i have to continually prove it to myself on request.

interestingly, even when i'm dead on my feet i have some sort of compulsion which forces me to keep trying to stand straight and pretend i'm not. it's a little disturbing that after a month and a half i've found that around Rapunzel i'm managing to force myself to stop, shut up and let myself fall over a little. in the three years (on and off) with my previous employer i never really managed that. perhaps that has something to do with Capability - i don't think the previous could have held me up. seriously this girl continues to freak me the fuck out.

of course, come tomorrow i'll be back out there forcing myself to believe that i am in fact unstoppable and in the process grind myself further into the dirt to prove it to myself. either i'll start sleeping properly again and slow down enough to recover, or in another month or so i'll find myself keeled over face first on the floor with a 5'11" form standing over me saying

"You know how you thought you could keep that pace up? Well it turns out: not so much..."