I Can’t Complain

Today marked my first official day off for the holidays. 

While it is true that I was also off the Saturday and Sunday before today, I did not count them because I am always off on Saturday and Sunday anyway, so it felt like double-dipping to count them.  I am not one to inflate metrics just pander to the blog-reading public.  (Not that I’m above it, you understand.)

Besides, I did not write a post this past Saturday, which is when I would ordinarily have said that “today is my first official day off for the holidays”, and I hated to waste a perfectly good opening sentence … so … here we are.

“Waste not; want not” — That’s my motto.

Anyway, I’m off for the rest of the year.

Before you say, “Wow!  Aren’t you lucky?!” I wish to point something out.

Yes.  Yes, I am.

But, I also wish to point out that, doggone it, I deserve these weeks off.  It has been a stressful year and I worked the entire year without a break, most of it on-site as an essential worker. 

Yes, yes.  I know just about everyone else in the world did, to.  But just who is writing this post?

That is one of the worst parts about feeling great stress:  we can’t even say to ourselves that our stress was particularly unique.  No matter what we are going through, so are a great deal of other people.  Some of them are having a worse go of it than us.  So, not only are we stressed out, we are denied the comfort of feeling that we are somehow entitled to complain.

It is akin to stubbing your toe and then, as you look around for sympathy, finding out that everyone else within sight stubbed their toe at the exact same time you did.  And a few of them had to have their feet amputated.

So, we just resume walking and say, “Well, it’s just a stubbed toe.  It’s not so bad.  I can keep going.”

But the absolute worst is when somebody who lost both legs in a toe-stubbing accident looks at you and thinks to himself, “Whew!  At least I’m not that guy!”

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