I got off the phone with Kim and stepped into the kitchen. The oven was on.
“I thought you were going to eat with me,” I said.
“Sorry, love, I didn’t know how long you’d be on the phone,” Patrick replied sheepishly.
“No, it’s okay,” I said, looking at the clock. 12:55. I swiped on my phone to see when the call had started: 12:22. “I didn’t think it would take that long either.”
“I haven’t put anything in, I can still turn it off.”
I groaned. And then proceeded to list off all the things I still needed to do — make lunch (which is a whole ordeal since I’m still in the early re-introduction phase of this elimination diet and need whatever I cook to yield leftovers for school lunches) and meal prep, do some copywriting, lesson plan, fold my clothes — and whine about how my neck still hurt from the whiplash I experienced when we went zip-lining last weekend.
“Just take it one step at a time,” Patrick hugged me. “What can you do right now?”
“Make lunch?” I mumbled against his chest.
It’s laughable to me now, looking back at the moment with a fuller belly and a few more things ticked off on my “done list.”
For the last 26 days I’ve been reading Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. Burkeman essentially starts this book of, not really meditations, but rather short chapters that are “food for thought,” from the reality that human life is finite and imperfect and evades our attempts to control it at every turn. Like we’re in a “little one-person kayak… at the mercy of the current” (11). He posits that if we can just accept this reality and let go, we’ll be able to actually spend our very limited time on this Earth doing what brings us real joy.
My hangry outburst was the perfect example of my futile attempt to control my life and tackle my insurmountable to do list.
Burkeman quotes Marie Curie: “One never notices what has been done; one can see only what remains to be done” (20).
In my frustration at what remained to be done, I’d diminished the fact that I had already: repotted all of the plants in the apartment that had been infested with fungus gnats (gross) and cleaned the bathroom (which needed it) and washed my hair (which, if you’re a curly girl or have long, thick hair, you know is always a whole ordeal).
But that’s what we do. Burkeman describes a “productivity debt,” where many people feel they must “return to a zero balance by the time evening comes. If they fail — or worse, don’t even try — it’s as though they haven’t quite justified their existence on the planet. If this describes you, there’s a good chance that like me you belong to the gloomy bunch psychologists label ‘insecure overachievers’” (20).
I’m laughing again as I type this, remembering a text exchange with Ana yesterday. She was telling me how exhausted she was.
“Did Elena sleep?” I asked.
“She’ll nap at noon and I really want to sleep, but also the house is a MESS.”
Her dilemma reminded me of another quote in Burkeman’s book, this time from Sheldon B. Kopp: “You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences” (14).
We don’t really have to clean the house, or do the laundry, or lesson plan, or water the plants. We have the “freedom to examine the trade-offs — because there will always be trade-offs — and then to opt for whichever trade-off you like” (19).
Ana ended up sleeping those 2 hours that Elena napped. And me? I’m taking it one step at a time, knowing that there will always be more things to do, because that’s the nature of the game.
For now, I’ll ask myself, what else can I add to my “done list” for today? Perhaps taking our pup on a walk with my love? Sounds like a worthy use of my limited time on this planet.
Writing With Abandon 
Leave a reply to Ana Valentina Patton Cancel reply