Yesterday, I woke up earlier than usual because my phone alarm screamed at 6:45 a.m. and I had forgotten to turn it off after the weekend. I groaned, rolled over, and finally slapped the screen silent. For a moment, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling and wondering why I still set alarms when I have been working from home for two years now. Then I remembered: today I have planned a full day of “adulting,” the kind that does not wait for motivation.
I swung my legs out of bed, stretched until my back cracked, and shuffled to the kitchen. I have always loved that first quiet moment when the apartment still smells like sleep. I filled the kettle, ground some coffee beans I had bought from a small roaster last week, and watched the water boil. While the coffee dripped, I opened the fridge and realized I had eaten the last yogurt two days ago and never replaced it. Classic me.
By 7:30, I was sitting at the table with a steaming mug and my laptop. I have been trying to start every morning with fifteen minutes of planning instead of diving straight into emails. So I opened my notebook (yes, an actual paper one) and wrote down everything that needs doing today. The list looked terrifying: grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, calling the dentist to reschedule the appointment I have missed twice already, answering twenty-three unread work messages, preparing slides for tomorrow’s presentation, and fixing the wobbly leg on the dining chair that has annoyed me for three months.
I prioritized. Groceries first, because I have run out of everything except frozen peas and one sad onion. I grabbed my reusable bags, slipped on shoes, and walked to the supermarket ten minutes away. On the way, the cold November air slapped my face and woke me up properly. I have decided that I will always walk when the distance is under two kilometers; it makes me feel slightly less guilty about the chocolate I inevitably buy.
Inside the store, I pushed the cart too fast and almost crashed into an elderly lady (sorry!). I have been using the same handwritten shopping list template for years: produce, dairy, protein, pantry, snacks, cleaning stuff. Today I stuck to it religiously because last week I came home with three types of chips and no toilet paper. I weighed sweet potatoes, sniffed melons like my mother taught me, chose the cheapest eggs that were not cracked, and treated myself to a small bar of 85% dark chocolate “for energy.” At the checkout, the cashier scanned everything while I packed like a Tetris champion. Total damage: €73.40. I have spent worse.
Back home, I unpacked everything, wiped the counter that had collected crumbs overnight, and started laundry because the basket was overflowing again. While the machine rumbled, I finally opened my work laptop. Twenty-three messages had become thirty-one. I sighed, put on focus music, and answered the urgent ones first. My boss has asked me three times this month if I can present the Q4 projections tomorrow, and each time I have said “of course” while internally screaming. Today I actually opened the spreadsheet and updated the numbers I have been avoiding for days.
At noon, I paused, made a sandwich with the fresh bread I had just bought, and ate it standing up because sitting felt like wasting time. Then I scrubbed the bathroom until it smelled like lemon and bleach instead of whatever mysterious odor had been living there. I have discovered that cleaning is 90% procrastination and 10% fury, and today the fury won.
By 3 p.m., the laundry was dry, folded, and put away (a personal record). I called the dentist, apologized for the second cancellation, and booked a new slot for next Thursday. The receptionist sounded like she has heard every excuse in the world, but she was kind anyway.
The chair leg still wobbled. I flipped the table upside down, found the loose screw, tightened it with the Allen key I have kept in the “random tools” drawer since 2021, and felt like a proper adult for exactly six seconds.
At 5 p.m., I opened the presentation file again. For the next three hours, I will be adding charts, deleting ugly fonts, rewriting bullet points that have embarrassed me since last quarter, and practicing in front of the mirror like a complete idiot. Tomorrow at 10 a.m., twenty people will watch me explain why our numbers look the way they do. tonight I am pretending I am not nervous.
Around 8, I closed the laptop, cooked pasta with the sauce I have frozen last month, and ate dinner on the couch while watching one episode of that series everyone is talking about. I have promised myself only one, but we both know how this ends.
Before bed, I will set tomorrow’s alarm for 7:30 (more reasonable), water the plants that have survived my neglect, and write three things I am grateful for in my journal because my therapist says it helps, and surprisingly it does.
Tomorrow I will wake up, groan again, and start another day of small ordinary battles. I have done it hundreds of times before, and I will do it hundreds of times again. And somehow, that feels okay.