Forked

There's nothing like the sinking feeling you get after receiving and accepting a call in to work on your day off.

My plans for today consisted of the following tasks (in no particular order):

• take a shower
• go grocery shopping
• sort through my music
• re-watch/listen to season one of Battlestar Galactica
• recode a frak-ton of HTML on the side pages of this blog
• relax and take it easy for all of today

I got most of that done, but now I won't be able to pull off those last two.

After hanging up my cell phone, I found myself caught in a mental purgatory of sorts. I looked at the recoded pages - or what I had done for the day - and took a deep breath as reality sunk in.



On one hand I need to get as many hours as possible so I can stay financially adrift. We (and by we I mean the Target I work at) haven't been doing so well in terms of sales, and as such we've been forced to cut our hours much earlier in the holiday season than necessary. I normally get a number that hovers around the mid-thirties, but due to the cuts I've been reduced by roughly ten hours. Whoo. Getting called in means more hours for me, which means more monies to throw around for bills and what not. That basically means I will survive.

However, when we inspect the other side of the coin, taking and accepting the call now makes me feel like I'm not even respecting myself for a much-needed personal day. While I get decent time for myself to relax and not get pushed around at work, I have rarely had an off-day where I can relax and accomplish everything I set out to do for that day. Off-days provide me with the opportunity to recharge both my batteries and my sanity. I get to live.

Both choices are important in their own rights, but in the end, we're at a crossroads, and there's no backing out once a decision to turn is made.



Now, this means that at the fork in the road, I had to choose between two options that - in my view - are surprisingly symbiotic. Those choices? Survival, and living. By choosing the first option I succeed in surviving, but I sacrifice my freedom and my sanity. Choosing the latter option lets me stay at peace, but it dooms me when it comes to surviving in the real world. I understand both sides of the situation, and I know that in most scenarios, selection of "survival" is the preferred option. I just... I just don't know how long I can keep choosing that side before I get burnt out of that choice.

*sigh* Maybe I'm just ranting about the minutiae again. I 'unno. So, until I actually go in to work, I'm just going to finish what I can with the page editing.