My enemy is at the gates, and I can do nothing about it. It’s hot. Again. And it, as well as the rain coming have wrecked my plans for tomorrow. I wanted to finish my yard, do some work on cleaning up the enclosure I have my garbage cans in, but, it’s supposed to rain. Today it was up around 90F/32.2C, with a Feels Like of 99/37.2. Yesterday had me wobbly trying to mow, today would have boiled me alive. My frustration at the weather grows. I have a yard that’s not even half-mowed that I can’t do much about between the heat and the rain, and I’m running out of other projects to work on inside. It needs done, but I need it to cool off and stay dry long enough to do it, which frustrates me to no end. I want things done, I don’t like having obstacles I can’t do anything about in my way to prevent me from doing it. If it was something I could fix, something I could change, I’d do so, but the weather is what it is, ultimately. So, I need a new plan for the day. I don’t want to spend my day in front of my desk playing video games, I already spend my days at my desk doing my job (and sneaking in video games when I can). I don’t want to go get coffee because I’ve gotten coffee the past two days from having to go out to buy dinner instead of cooking. Because it’s hot, we don’t have air conditioning, and this house doesn’t dissipate heat like it should. Have I mentioned I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year? Because I really do. I don’t necessarily want it to be winter now, but I would like for it to be a temperature and a weather type that would let me get more things done. I don’t like staying cooped up all day so that I don’t drop like a stone in the middle of my yard. I want to edge up my driveway, I want to work on the garbage enclosure, I don’t have the time to do these things most other days, so it frustrates me when I have to waste time not doing things. I’d be less frustrated had I more work to do inside at least. I can still take garbage bags from the closet to the dump tomorrow morning at least, maybe load it up with more garbage I’ve dug out of the shed as well to make myself feel useful. Which I think is my biggest problem, that if I’m not killing myself on a thousand projects at once, I’m not proving my worth, not being useful. I don’t necessarily want to rest, I want to put up numbers, have something tangible to show I didn’t waste my day, show the voices in my head that no, I have done things, I didn’t waste my day on games. I know I don’t have to do that, but in my mind, I do. Staying busy makes me feel better, makes me feel more fulfilled as a person, all that time on my hands and nothing to do spirals me. I have three days off next week, a five-day vacation, and outside of one day, I have nothing planned yet. I’ll have gone stir-crazy by the time I actually hit the weekend then, I have to be doing something. And being right in the dog days of summer, that makes it a lot harder to actually do work when it’s a billion degrees in either scale. I know, I don’t have to be like this, and I’ve tried to turn off that switch in my brain, it won’t turn off. A part of me wants to never take time off, regardless of it being so that work doesn’t stress me into a heart attack. I know I need that time, I’m entitled to use it, no one will fault me if I take that time just to have a break, but that genetic defect in my mind says I have to keep going, keep constantly proving I belong. Because in my head, the second I lay off the gas, I’ll fall apart. In my head, I’ll lose my job, lose the house, lose everything if I stop going for a second, even though it isn’t at all the case. My numbers are high, the bills are paid, every boss I’ve had has wanted me to actually use my time off, instead of letting it go to waste. Or at least actually chill out on my off-days. Not burn myself out further on every project under the sun, because some of them can wait, some of them have to be done when the weather allows. I can only do what I can do, and be content with what I could get done. I don’t have to like it though. The frustration at the heat, frustration at myself for not being able to physically handle it like I used to, it drives me nuts. But I do have to accept it, and work on the remainder of my projects as I can, not as I want. Maybe by the weekend it’ll be cooler and drier to where I can knock more off my list. Because I want this thing down as much as I can get it before the weather starts actually getting cold.