Today was a build day for me.
Chris Bailey says there are really only three types of days we humans can have: building days, maintenance days, and rest days. I kind of sort of hate that Chris is right, but it's also made life a lot easier for me since I started thinking of things this way.
I'm sitting at my desk in my office and I've just realized it's dark. Like, it's very squarely night-time and I don't know the last time I ate. Whoops. So I'm sitting there in my office with the lights off and I'm staring at the open template file terminal on my laptop and the lines of code I've been tweaking in my latest journey to bypass some of HubSpot's default functionality. With a sigh, I resign myself to sitting in the near darkness for a bit longer. Those template files are always in some version of dark-mode, anyway, so I'm still shocked as to how I managed to miss the fact that the sun set.
I'm thinking about how I did something kind of radical and left my laptop behind when we went to Maine over the weekend. It's the first time I scheduled this column ahead of time during this entire year-long daily writing project. I felt weird about it... like I was cheating or something. But I was also running on fumes, and I knew the time spent playing outside was something I needed dearly. So I did it—I wrote a couple posts ahead of time and scheduled them to send without me.
I'm glad I did it, and I hope you don't fault me for it too much.
Some days are for swimming towards something (figuratively or literally, you pick), some are for treading water, and some are for floating. I've spent years tinkering with ways to engineer the right conditions for making "building days" almost inevitable. I'm good at it. I've acclimated to a life of very high output. I don't say that to brag; it's been helpful, sure, but I also struggle significantly with sitting still after years of priming myself to lock the fuck in. Which, you might have deduced, is why I've been working on learning to follow my energy and accept the day I'm capable of in the moment, rather than trying to force it to be something it's not.
Easier said than done.
On my way toward the kitchen, I still reach to shut off my office lights that are ~not on~ because apparently, I'm a creature of habit. This weekend was a rest weekend. I'm ok with that. Yesterday, was a maintenance day of getting caught up on life stuff like laundry, cleaning, bills etc... and I'm ok with that, too. And then today, without really meaning to, I accidentally had a week's worth of building days in one.
I'm smiling while shuffling toward the fridge to find some dinner.
I used to get worried when I couldn't replicate my "hyperspeed" days, as I called them. The torrent of guilt and shame I felt at not being able to conjure a building day when I needed one, or at being paralyzed by the weight of life on a self-appointed rest day, often made me miserable. I don't talk much about my AuDHD because I think I still feel largely misunderstood in that realm. For a moment, though, between grabbing a frying pan and reaching to turn on the burner, I think about the mountain of stuff I sifted through and the progress I made today... and I feel my shoulders release their grip. I hadn't even realized the boa-constrictor mode they'd been in.
My eyes feel hollow, but I don't.
Oh, right—
On my way back to the frying pan waiting on top of the stove, I flick the kitchen lights on.
***
Also I saw this floating around online and I wish I knew who posted it. I have not audibly cackled from a meme like I did when I saw this in a long, long time.
Bravo, whoever you are.
Do you follow the tides or try to generate your own waves?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.