i signed up to receive occasional emails about potential volunteer opportunities through my job's corporate giving/philanthropy side. the opportunities tend to run the gamut from "sign up for a 10k!" to "let's go paint a classroom!" to "virtual tutoring fever: catch it!" and for whatever reasons, i usually scan them and delete. maybe it's a schedule conflict, or the location doesn't work for me transportation-wise, or i'm just not interested. no big deal.
in going through my work email yesterday, i spotted another volunteer opportunity message. this one involved making cards to give to cancer patients. i have no drawing ability whatsoever, but we all know that #fuckcancer is always active as far as i'm concerned, so i kept reading. the activity was scheduled from 4:30-6pm in the lower level of my office building. there was no requirement to show up for the entire 90 minutes - you could come and go as you saw fit. i went ahead and signed up, figuring that if work got too crazy, i could go downstairs after 4:30 or, if i really needed to stay and power through something, i could skip it altogether.
today was a blah kind of day. i woke up feeling exhausted even though i read for a bit and meditated and went to bed at a decent hour and actually slept for longer than 2 hours at any given point. i briefly considered working from home, but then remembered this volunteer thing and decided to head in. my boss assigned a new project to me and i didn't even bother with my customary whining about how i didn't want any more work on my plate. the blah was real. that feeling persisted all day. bff texted to say hi and ask how things were going and all i could muster was "blah." thankfully she understood.
when my "hey, you have a thing in 15 minutes" reminder popped up in outlook, i was trying to get my projects to a sensible stopping point. i think i finally made it downstairs around 5ish, which is when i'm usually trying to leave work anyway. there were tables set up with colored paper and markers and pens and stickers. the tables were divided by age range and had suggestions of what to say and what not to say depending on the age group.
did i mention the foundation that my job had partnered with focuses on children and young adults with cancer? there were 3 age groups and i figured i could make 1-2 cards for each group and then see where i was in terms of time and creativity.
6 cards and maybe 25 minutes later, i was done. i'd been hoping that the feeling of blah would ease up a bit since i was focusing on something else, but to no avail. i think a lot of us have redoubled our efforts to do what we can where we can in the past week or so, and it's possible that i'd placed unnecessarily high expectations on myself and how fulfilling this would be for me.
please don't misunderstand me here - making the cards was a great low-impact way for me to do something for a cause that is near and dear to my heart and i would do it again with little to no hesitation. and it's not that making these cards made me feel sad or depressed or anything like that, either. it's just that the feeling of blah was way more entrenched than i'd previously given it credit for.
i'm writing this after running a couple of errands and buying ingredients to make yet another orzo recipe (last one for a while, i promise) and now that i've eaten dinner and cleaned up the kitchen and gotten a bit organized for work tomorrow, i'm still feeling a bit, well, blah. i'm going to read for a bit and try to get another halfway decent night's sleep and hopefully this blah will lift at least a little.
thanksgiving is next week and i think we can all use the break. in the meantime, here's hoping everyone is hanging in there as best as you can. 💜
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