Physical Exhaustion

I am tired, so physically tired at this point its a battle to even drag myself to bed at night. Once there I can only seem to manage a few hours of sleep, before I end up staring at the wall for the rest of the night. Why? Many factors I suppose.

Firstly I have been so under the weather all week that my body is just about ready to collapse. Finally after about 4 days of this, the medicine seems to be alleviating some of the symptoms. I slept more and better last last night then the rest of the week combined. Thats not saying much as I only mustered 4 hours or so of sleep and woke around 3:30am. I did manage to clear my head and get back to sleep for another hour before waking for the day.

There is also the fact that the new year is barely 2 months old, and I have already had to see four funerals for family and friends. I say four, because that is how many family/friends I have lost this year. Fortunately it was only possible to attend 2 of the 4 actual funerals, due to location and time in finding out about the losses. Tonight and tomorrow will conclude the 4th and hopefully final funeral for a while.

It could also be stresses in real life. In addition to being sick, there is no rest for me. With a wife and two kids to take care of at home, added to the overwhelming backlog at work (real life), I am forced to go non-stop from morning to late night. I had a co-worker quit unexpectedly and without notice, leaving me with twice as much work to do in the same amount of time I was falling behind before. Work related stress and non-work related frustrations are taking a large toll on me.

Finally, part of it I blame on personal frustrations with DMOZ. Whether real or just perceived feelings, I can’t help but feel an outcast. I have seen some of the best editors and community leaders lose interest and fall to the way side, and while I don’t consider my self close to being in either category, I have found it harder and harder to dedicate much of my sparse free time to the project either. Personally, I have not made a recordable edit in a week. I have heard from a couple of other Meta’s that they are finding the same problems. I have been reading feedback and emails, as well as monitoring and contributing to forums where I felt the need for input.

Beyond that there really has only been on personal project keeping my attention. The one true love I have always had in DMOZ is joining and mentoring new editors. While I don’t think I am the best at it, I like to think I do ok. At the moment, I have one editor in particular that I see a great editing future in. I am focusing my efforts in finding more of those and helping this one get better and expand. Hopefully that is my 1 true foothold on the project, that keeps me going through the roughest times.

Hopefully more to come later. Until then, take care and be safe!