Forms of tiredness

Between 7 pm on Friday night and 7 pm last night I had four separate conversations with four different people whom I've known for thirty years or more. Every one of those conversations was long (one hour, two, two-and-a-half and four-and-a-half, respectively), intense, wide-ranging and tête-à-tête, if you count the phone one which was more properly a case of oreille-à-bouche.

All of these people are very dear friends. One was a little bit tired and emotional; one was visiting from another city and up for the marathon professional and personal catching-up that we get the chance to do maybe once a year, if that. And one had had some truly dreadful news.

By 3 am this morning I was in that horrible state known only, I think, to people over about 35: of feeling at once exhilarated (in an overwhelmed sort of way) by the complexity of life, with specific reference to lifelong friends and all that we know about each other, and completely flattened by life's unexpected weights, by the pianos it drops on you while you're thinking about something else. I was exhausted to the marrow and far too wired to sleep. You know you're really at some extremity of feeling when you're reading Val McDermid in a desperate attempt to calm down and fall asleep, and it works. But not a lot of work is going to get done today.