Relaxing is not for me, it’s for people who un-relax me. I am just rubbish at relaxing.
Typically, I sleep for 4 to 5 hours per night, sometimes less. I am not a deep a sleeper either. What’s more, the moment I am awake, around 4 am, I want to get up and do stuff. For example, as I write this at 4:15 am, I am baking sourdough bread.
Whether in the office, at home or travelling, I cannot sit down for more than 10 minutes; I have to get up and move around. This is why I insist on having an aisle seat on flights so I can get up without having to seek a fellow-passenger’s co-operation. In the office, I get up for a walk around, get a drink from the kitchen, or drop on a work colleague, in preference to calling them. In long meetings, I fidget for as long as I can take it but finally, I get up and walk about for a while. I am at my worst at home where I find it difficult to sit and watch an entire movie without getting up on the pretext of needing a snack or drink from the kitchen.
To this day, I go supermarket shopping on Saturdays to arrive at opening time, get back home, unpack, and then wonder what to do for the rest of the day before people around me even had a chance to wake up.
My biggest nightmare is going to the cinema or theatre where I am expected to sit down for two hours or so. I fidget and shift in my seat all the way through the film or play. The theatre is slightly better because they have an interval break.
Writing the above four or five paragraphs entailed getting up and checking the oven twice already.
I don’t know what others think of me and my fidgeting habit; I bet at the very least, it must be mildly irritating to them. Sorry everyone, you can have a slice of freshly baked sourdough bread.
