Restless

Unproductive reflexions on my own need for rest. Written in march 2026, posted in september. Cause I forgot but the whole thing is still highly relevant.

March 2026

I have a few days off coming up.

Finally. I have been very busy lately, for the last month or so, well since the beginning of march actually. A lot of mutual aid engagements, union work, friends and comrades, scheduled. Seing people, having a crush, finally going to physio for my back, therapy - labors of love that tally up: restless still. Being there. On. I'm tense, pulled in all directions, willing and wanting but taut.

Work has been hectic -not more than usual, really, but I've felt it more strongly, it seems, what with everything else. And the world, in the background, evidently, has made it all that much heavier. Bad news on worse news, big and small.

Truly this past week, well these past ten days, have been a lot.

But I have a few days off coming up, I am finally going to rest.

I can hardly believe it when I say it. I am all turned towards the idea. I stretch across the days to reach out and touch it with the tip of my finger. I count the hours. At last, rest.

For the first two days of the bank holiday weekend I actually have plans. Engagements, for organisations. A meeting with a reasonable agenda, a DIY project at a venue I signed up (meant to sign up, am going to sign up) for. Far from home, but worth it. Friendly faces in each of these, even if the commute is a pain.

And then I'm all set.

I have a train ticket to go see my [redacted] for the rest of my time off. In my buzzing mind this is what rest could feel like: my cheek pressed to their jean-clad thigh. Fun and deep conversations and dozing off on the couch in turns. In the same place, understood. This is what I am turning towards, impatiently.

Of course, we have plans: their own mutual aid engagements, friends and comrades, scheduled. +1 me, brought along, hand in hand, almost my friends and comrades at this point.

The train journey is a little stressful, as is being far from home, still. And there's the regular worries: am I too clingy ? Asking too much ? Bad at sex ? A danger, a coward, a burden ? Probably not, but the flutter in my stomach is real.

So maybe not an exclusively restful trip, but mostly. A few days off, finally.

I'm finishing my last day of work now, I'm gonna rest, later, soon.

Except the closer it gets the more I worry that actually, I've forgotten how to rest. Honestly, rest feels like a distant dream. A shiny stone I kick down the road to keep going. A beautiful idea for later. That I don't know when or how I'll get to.

It's ironic, considering telling people to rest, take time, take care, is an advice I am pretty consistently good at. I hate the smell of burn out and I am a huge proponent of knowing your limits and respecting them. I'll tell you straight out to cancel plans. Break up. Sleep in. As a union rep the thing I say the most is along the line of "If it can't get done then it shouldn't get done."

I know the theories of rest. I know you cannot pour from an empty cup. And my cup is dangerously low.

But I have no idea what it would take for me to rest. Getting rid of all obligations seems unlikely, and undesirable; There's not a lot I'm doing that I would rather not do. Ideally I'd like to do more things. And if I knew what it would take to fill my cup, I'd get in line immediately.

Because even in the absence of demands - no tasks scheduled, no promisses- I would never be out of my body-mind. I would remain on. Every thought opened and not yet closed, things that need thinking and doing, like your 2009 laptop on as many facebook tabs. Anxiously whirring in the background. Restless.

And anyway, some things *have* to be done. The mundane remains: dishes must be cleaned, the cat fed. The political never rests: fascism must be resisted at all instants, and masks, in the absence of alternatives, distributed. The labours of love - my obligations to my fellow humans, don't stop at a set time. To do away with doing would never be rest. And I would have to be out of the world - out of my life- to be rid of it. And then I would just be floating aimlessly, cut off from the world, from love, which births obligation.

I know the theories of rest. That the fight can't exist without the party (don't quote the quote at me, please) but I've found myself all tangled up in militant threads, running through all aspect of my life. Duty, mutual reliance, call it what you want, the world doesn't stop when I get tired of it. I'm not falling into "not having fun as long as a single person is suffering" kind of martyrdom. But it's hard to feel light when everything is heavy.

It gets even more complicated when all of your friends are in the fight with you (it makes the fight bearable of course, but the not-fight suffers sometimes). There are maybe three people I'm close to in my life that are not part of a mask bloc, and they're all still colleagues or comrades (or live with me and my issues). When me and my now best friends started hanging out outside of The Work, we had to put timers on subjects related to it and we would consistently fail at respecting them. The world just doesn't stop during the party.
Now more and more of us are having conversations along the lines of "what happens to the group (and the Work) if we break up." Which sounds worse than it is, but a looming threat nonetheless.

How do you rest when the work is everywhere all the time ? And this is not even mentioning my enemy The Phone, although I am getting better at muting apps and conversations.

I know the theories of rest. Like taking care of your body. I haven't breathed out in a week, I haven't worked out in any substantial ways in months. Random health issues keep popping up and freezing me in place with worry. They're nothing too bad but they have made my body -once again- a stranger and a threat. A weird alien baby that I don't know how to communicate with let alone care for. I am, as I sit on the couch, jaw clenched, knees tucked in until my joints feel like they're calcifying, beside myself.

I know the theories of rest. I know a way out is to ask for help. I think I forgot how to do that too. I know how to vent and complain (I wouldn't be french otherwise) but asking for help requires knowing what you need. And I haven't got a fucking clue.