Burning the Candle at Both Ends

This weekend was really, truly excellent – but with a catch.

Despite my Thursday night flight home being very delayed, I managed to get a decent night’s sleep – and woke up on Friday feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was able to sneak in a Refine Method class before starting work for the day, and that just got the day (and the month of February!) off to a great start.

On Friday evening after work, I went to dinner with my former broker – he found the lovely apartment that I’ve been living in for six years, and we make plans to catch up over drinks or dinner every year or so. It was really a weekend of catching up with old friends, because Saturday at noon found me brunching with one of my NYU sorority sisters, and Saturday night I went to a wine bar with a friend that I had lost touch with over the last year or so. Amazing flatbread pizza + good wine list + in my neighborhood? So happy.

Sandwiched in with all these old friend catchups, I did Refine every morning – and as a result, was insanely sore by Sunday. One thing that I really like about Refine, though, is that every day is completely different. So while I was exhausted when I woke up on Sunday morning, I knew that I wouldn’t be working the same exact muscle groups as the day before. I considered skipping the class because of how tired I was, but reminded myself that I’d be working out something entirely different. After some pear Chobani for fuel (totally obsessed with that new flavor!), I convinced myself that the workout would be doable and headed off to class. Sunday’s class was taught by the owner of Refine, Brynn, and while it was really tough, I was incredibly proud of myself for pushing hard and actually doing a decent job with the assigned exercises. Hooray! Major feeling of accomplishment after that one.

Post-Refine on Sunday, though, my working out for the weekend was not quite over. Instead, I was off to the New York Rogue Runners Run to City Bakery – 5 miles followed by refueling at a hot chocolate festival! LOVE. Despite being exhausted after Refine, I was jumping for joy about this idea.

But despite that fun pic from Susan, my energy wasn’t the highest on the actual run – and I knew I was totally overdoing it by going for a run after Refine (7 miles total by the time I included my run to/from the events). In fact, the whole weekend I had kind of been overdoing it. On the one hand, I wanted to call it an absolutely perfect weekend; on the other, there’s a very fine line between getting in everything that I want to do and getting in enough rest to keep me going. After hanging out at City Bakery for a little while, I headed home to do nothing more than lie in bed, watch TV, and read a little bit. I really need to schedule more afternoons like that!

Sunday evening, for the Superbowl, I also chose to lay low – heading to a friend’s apartment two blocks away instead of the big party I was invited to that was three train rides away. I had a fantastic time hanging out, but that power outage didn’t help matters in me getting home to bed early. (I usually try to go to bed by 9/9:30pm on Sunday nights, since I have to be up at 4:30am to catch my flight.) I spent yesterday honestly exhausted – and realizing that perhaps it’s time for me to stop burning the candle at both ends. It used to be that in NYC, I would go all out with friends, and in my client city, I’d stick to just working and resting. But now that I have some amazing friends in Dallas, there are lots of activities tempting me in both parts of the country! I think I am starting to get overcommitted – but I love what I am doing in both places, so it’s hard to know where to cut back.

Tonight is not the night I’ll be able to change anything, since I have a client dinner at an amazing Dallas restaurant I’ve wanted to try for a long time. I also don’t foresee myself laying low tomorrow night – it’s my last night in Dallas for the week and I want to see my friends before I’m gone for the weekend! But with that attitude, I’ve realized that I’m going to be completely burnt out before long. Despite my guest post for Ari Meisel a few weeks ago (Find Balance, Achieve More), it’s clear that I still have plenty of work to do on finding my balance yet again.

Stay tuned for my February challenge, which is already in progress. I am just too tired to write about it right now 🙂