I am not an employee, but, like many people with regular office jobs, I got to enjoy a few days of well-deserved rest at the end of the year. Now I’m sort of dreading coming back to work. The ball’s already in motion, though: boring tasks, unexpected to-do’s, confounding correspondence, surprise events.
These first few days of the year I was able to enjoy the rare gift of clarity, knowing exactly how I wanted to spend my time and doing exactly that. Now I’m scared of losing that luxury. Of course, I could always scrape up odd bits of time and pour them into my preferred activities, but there’s always the potential for doomscrolling.
What I’m starting to see, though, is how easy it is to just keep a tab open with a running draft and returning to it whenever I start to feel a certain level of mental pushback to continuing work. This is going to be my grounding space. And if I lose my way for good and never make it back to what I’m supposed to be doing, at least I’ll have something to show for it.