living decision fatigue

 One thing I haven't heard discussed much, and I am SURE I am not the only one dealing with it, is decision fatigue as this pandemic grinds on.

Like, the end of this summer, as Delta surged in my region, I was given the choice: pivot to online and teach all online, or teach in person and risk you maybe having a breakthrough infection, or risk your students getting sick and I just.....I couldn't. I chose to teach in person, maybe that was a bad choice? Right now I'm doing online "broadcasts" for people who must isolate or are unwell themselves but that does add another layer of cognitive effort (gotta remember the webcam, gotta set up the webcam, gotta use two extra apps to get things working, gotta remember to take the webcam back after class). And still I wound up with a crash-and-burn situation in one class when one person came to class infected. And I worry some people are concerned about the risk (though then again: I opened up "online broadcast" to anyone, pushing the decision onto them).

And now the new thing: as I was finishing up the AAUW yearbooks, the new president e-mailed me: "So, the person who was going to host next week? Has a heart condition now* and is concerned about exposure, do we cancel or go all virtual or what?" and I am like "I AM ONLY THE SECRETARY DON'T ASK ME"

Really. Don't. I'm tired. I am heartsick about feeling like the decisions I make could seriously impact someone's life. I've had to make way too damn many decisions these past two years, stretching back to that time at the funeral home where the director asked my mom "so do you want him cremated in the clothes he had on, or do you want us to take them off him and wash them and give them back" and she looked at me and in that moment the look on her face told me "I cannot decide. I am done with deciding, I can't do this" and I had to decide, and I said "just leave them on" mainly because I couldn't deal with having to drive back there to pick the clothes up. 

That's really maybe the bifurcation, maybe that's where the universes split and I wound up in the one that's all hard decisions, all the time.

I am tired. I am just so tired. I am tired out from trying to keep myself safe and my colleagues and fellow congregants safe and my students safe. I am tired out from not doing things that maybe I could do but I don't because I feel like fewer people out there help stop the spread more (though maybe I'm wrong on that?)

I'm tired from (going back to early 2020) wondering "do I buy this extra four-pack of TP just in case, or leave it on the shelf for someone else who doesn't already have a four-pack at home?" or "Do I get carry out restaurant food to help keep our local places afloat, or could that be a vector of disease to me?" or, fall 2020: "Do I teach in person, knowing that six months of not interacting with people has damaged me psychologically, or do I teach online because if I catch COVID there's a slim chance it could kill me?"

The thing is, there's no shortage of people willing to TELL me what to do, but their advice is noisy and conflicting and there's no one i really TRUST any more to tell me. (I miss my dad. I feel like he'd have known better what to do). 

So yes, I am very very tired. I feel very much like I did in grade school when I was part of a group project and much of the time the people I had been put with (because our social-engineery teachers believed in their hearts that "put a diligent student with slackers and she will teach the slackers to pull themselves up by their bootstraps!") would say things like "we all get the same grade and you are the only one who cares, so I don't see why you shouldn't just do all the work here" and of course the teachers never listened to my complaints about that. 

So I am faced now with things like being burned out on making choices so I either make extremely impulsive choices (waves arm at all the needless things I bought online, just to feel alive by having something to look forward to arriving in the mail) or I can't choose (many evenings my dinner is the first piece of fruit I can grab out of the fridge and maybe some cheese because trying to decide what to cook feels like Too Much). 

I don't know if other people are feeling this to, or if it's just me. I hope I get better because - I live alone, so I HAVE to make almost all the decisions for my life, and it's bad when deciding feels like too much effort and worry. 

(I couldn't find the "I have a stomachache" one in a saveable format, but that's maybe more my mood right now)