A Day In the Life

Some of my friends ask, "What do you do all day?" Most of those who ask are the kind of people who don't sit still and are constantly doing something.

The kind of person I used to be before getting sick.

I've been meaning to write about my typical day, but haven't because I worried that it would come out looking like so much wasted time to people with steady jobs & 1.5 kids.

I realized that my biggest fear about my condition and lifestyle changes we made to deal with it are all around fears about being judged. I don't want to be made to feel like a slacker or be treated like a drain on society.

Well, that and money.

Then I remembered that this is exactly the kind of thinking and self-loathing I swore to fight when I first got sick. This is the stuff that my wife and family told me not to worry about.

So today, I committed myself to it. Then, something odd happens. As I sat down to write, my RSS feeder refreshed to reveal that my sister just posted a day in the life of her own. I read all the stuff that she deals with and was really impressed. She's always struck me as kinda scatterbrained.... Smart, yes. Insightful, yes. Organized? Not so much.

Love you sis!

Yet, here she is running her congregation, dealing with an autistic child and just kicking butt. Now my typical day seems really pathetic. Oddly, this did not deter me. If anything I felt emboldened. I've got to talk about it!

A Day In The Life

If I try and give you an homogenized day of days, it won't work right. So instead, let me just tell you about today.

I got up around 10AM. I try to get up around 8:30-9AM, but the power was out this morning. So, I'm running a little slow. Like most mornings, I "shove" the dog outside, grab my cup of coffee, make a bowl of fruit, yogurt & granola and head upstairs for my morning computer session.

After checking my email and the headlines, I log onto World of Warcraft to make gold.

The game has a virtual economy. In order to "stay ahead" in the game, you've got to earn gold. I setup my auctions. This is like ebay. I have stuff that other people want. The market determines value much like a commodities market does. I then do "dailies." These are daily recurring quests that my character can do for gold and other in-game incentives. Slick and I have a "household" approach here. We share funds. So, when I'm making gold, I'm "working" for both of us.

Once breakfast & my gold-earning is completed, I purposefully stop playing the game. I learned early on that I can easily become caught up in the game and waste my day. It's time for exercise. Between sleeping late and the way I've been feeling the last 2 weeks, today we walked about a mile.

If things are going well, I will do 2.5 miles walking with the dog, then come home and do some additional stretching exercises based on Tai Chi. If, after about 1/2 a mile, I realize that I'm in for a rough day, I cut the walk to 1-1.5 miles and return home to relax.

Wednesday is typically a "get stuff done" day. Today is no exception. As soon as I'm done here, I'm hitting the showers and running errands. Slick needs a new wrist rest for her computer. We're almost out of coffee. Typical stuff.

As for the rest of the day? I'll make dinner, of course. Tonight is a "Raid" night. That again is World of Warcraft. This is when Slick and I get together online with 23 other people and tackle a big "end-game" challenge.

We typically raid 2-4 nights a week. It's a requirement for membership to our guild to participate 2 nights a week. If I'm feeling well, I'll go for 3 or 4.

Well, there you have it. That's Wednesday. It's a fairly typical day for me actually: Goof off all morning, try to accomplish something* (anything) in the afternoon, make dinner, play World of Warcraft with my friends in the evening. Exciting? No. Fulfilling? Eh, I can live with it for now.

* More words on trying to accomplish something: This is where my day really varies. On a really good day, this could mean some serious projects like cleaning or working in the yard. On a bad day, it could mean surviving the day. On most days it means getting a chore done, doing online stuff like my blogs, expanding my knowledge or yes...sometimes caving in and playing World of Warcraft.