When I’m experiencing a bunch of negative emotions around something I have to do, I stop fighting it.

I just let myself take a break and give myself permission to not do the thing, if it’s really going to be that big a deal.

Neither my identity nor my worthiness is on the line. Okay, maybe I’ll let someone down. Maybe I’ll let myself down. But so be it.

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Nebulous tasks are always the easiest ones to put off.

Even if you have clearly defined what you are going to do (“Write first draft” or “Fill out recommendation form”), there is an ugly amorphousness to certain things on our to-do list. We just don’t know how long they are going to take, and we suspect that it isn’t going to be a fun experience to do them. This one is going to require an uncertain amount of effort, attention, and focus; that one requires us to pull something out of ourselves that we aren’t sure we have. It makes perfect sense to choose something smaller, better defined, or practiced.

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In these pandemic times, there’s little difference between the days for work-at-home types like me.

Sure, once the things get rolling, there are more messages and pings on a weekday, and there is more traffic in my tiny city. But the predawn hours are tranquil; an early Sunday is indistinguishable from an early Monday. Both are dark and still.

So why would my Sunday self be unable to write while my Monday self is capable of it? Why does my Sunday self seek to crawl back into bed?

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I had big plans for the summer I was twelve.

I can’t remember what all of them were, but I know one of them was to practice the piano every day for thirty minutes. Maybe I was also going to write or draw every day and keep my room tidy.

Apparently, I haven’t changed a whole lot in terms of the things I’d like to accomplish. But I’m a lot better at sticking to my routines these days. What I didn’t know when I was twelve was that when, inevitably, I failed to follow through on my commitment, it wasn’t a permanent failure. I could always try again.

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Recently, I got to hug some family members for the first time since January.

A combination of traveling and the good ol’ pandemic kept me away — at least a few hours away, and sometimes a thousand miles away. But finally, outdoors on a beautiful day, none of us having gone anywhere recently, it was time to embrace.

I had been so anxious about missing them and missing so much of their lives. Kids change so fast. Would they even remember me? But within moments it was as though no time had passed. Just like old times, except in masks.

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