“Let’s Just Get This Over With”

Dearest Rachel –

It probably wasn’t the best idea for me to totter off to bed by nine-thirty, but by the time Logan realized we were home from having dinner at the folks’ and joined Daniel to watch anime with him, I was barely able to keep my eyes open. If it weren’t for the fact that you weren’t here to enjoy them, I might have put on one of the Let’s Players you used to watch while Daniel appeared to be engrossed in his own computer, and just let myself drift off into the food coma my body seemed insistent on sliding. It would have been much like old times, aside from your absence from the sofa beside me.

Fortunately, Logan eventually did show up downstairs, and the boys set up whatever it is they’re currently into, while I wandered off and dropped into bed straightaway, without even so much as turning on my own television to at least keep me up until a more reasonable sleeping hour. As a result, I found myself awake by five-thirty; which, aside from a brief moment at around one, does amount to the eight hours one is generally recommended to sleep, after all.

At the same time, it was still dark; not the sort of time that one really wants to get up at – although, as the days continue to shorten for the next four months (but who’s thinking about winter after a day like yesterday?), I’d best get used to seeing more of that darkness.

Regardless, with those eight hours under my belt, not to mention the fact that I’d not been to the gym since Tuesday, I concluded that I probably ought to get on with the day:

“Let’s just get this over with.”

The scale certainly agreed with me; not that it should surprise me, after a meal like last night’s. For all my exultation over nearly reaching my license weight the other day, I’m back over the two-forty line, and by no small margin, either. It was definitely time to make a deliberate effort to burn off a few hundred calories in a single go.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

For the next eighty minutes, this becomes something of a virtual mantra, as I go through my routine. On the rowing machine, I mentally measure off every hundred meters in twenty-five second segments, pushing (or rather, pulling) myself to get through the next one and the next one until I’ve completed sixteen of them, even though there are moments – even as early as the five hundred meter mark – where I would just as soon give up and call it good. On the exercise bike, the program already has intervals set up with rpms and heart rates for me to match for two or three minutes, and I just… get one over with, in order to get to the next interval and match the next set of rates for that given period. And finally, likewise with the treadmill, as I start by going uphill as steeply as I can (although even compared to the hills by the hotel in Iowa, an incline of 15° is nothing – granted, it’s not like that particular trek goes on for a third of a mile, either). None of what I’m doing is enjoyable, mind you – I’ve made that abundantly clear to you in the past, so I apologize for belaboring the point – but I’ve got to get on with it, and get it over with, in order to move on with my day, and my life.

But that’s the sad part of this mental loop: there’s nothing new about it, apart from being applied to a new part of the routine of my existence. My life has always been a case of applying that phrase – ‘let’s just get this over with’ – to one aspect of my life or another, whether large or small. School days were divided up into classes, with each one having to be dealt with to get to the next one… and ultimately, to the end of the day, when I could walk home, and do my homework in preparation for the following day’s assignments.

On a more micro level, marching band was a case where eight bars would take us from one configuration on the field to another, with every bar, every beat a step in that Confucian journey of a thousand miles. But I don’t think we looked at it that way – well, I certainly didn’t – aside from the videotapes we would watch after the fact. Every step we took was just that, a single step, and when you’re down on the field, you don’t – you can’t – see the big picture. You’re just making your way from point A to point B, and that’s it.

Likewise, for all the unnecessary things we were taught at school – and the necessary things we weren’t, for various reasons – we did learn something about adult life, especially white-collar life. Sitting in neat little rows, doing your assignments as you’re told is great practice for becoming a white collar drone, where you sit in neat little cubicles, doing your assignments as you’re told. The only difference is that there seem to be a lot more trips to the principal’s office, and there’s no built-in hope for graduation. It’s ever, always, only a matter of dragging yourself out of bed, doing whatever it takes to wake up, make yourself presentable and get yourself to the office, do your job and long for when everything will be sufficiently complete enough to allow you to go home and relax just enough so that you have sufficient energy to do this all over again the next day. Is it any wonder I kept this mantra going throughout the entirety of my work life? I still regret having to burden you with my own frustration and exhaustion.

But you put up with it, and moreover, seemed more than happy to grant me that freedom from never-ending cycle of getting one day and the next “over with” in order to make it to the following one, which would be no different – certainly no better – than the one before. We could have moments together, both as a couple and as a family, without spending all that time hoping for the one we were in to be done with so we could move on to the next.

Of course, we barely got eight months of this before we were shoved back into that cycle. “Just let’s get these fifteen days over with,” we were told, “and everything can go back to normal.” Fifteen days became a month, then two, and three, and ultimately ten…

And suddenly, there was no more ‘normal’ to go back to, because you were gone.

So now I have this yawning expanse of time to kill before I’m allowed to join you. To utter that mantra about this vast length, stretching out into an unknown distance, sounds depressive, even to my ears, and yet, I don’t see where it’s any more out of place now than at any other point in my life. I’m sure I’ve been left here for a reason – and some folks assure me that there’s even good to come of it all, if I’m willing to use the time properly – but for now, I just want to find it and get on with it. If I can come to a point where I’m productive, great; if I can find something I enjoy, fantastic; if I can combine those two, that would be absolutely wonderful.

But I’m not there yet. And I don’t mind telling you, I’m getting a little impatient. If I have to go through the valley (although it feels like I’ve spent enough time there already), fine – let’s just get this over with. When does it end? When do I see results? When does it matter?

For now, honey, just… keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.