I’m sure you know the kind of day that I’m talking about…
You didn’t sleep well at all the night before and laid in bed tossing and turning, so you sleep in late. Too late… And then the dominoes keep falling. It’s raining outside, and now the dog is a muddy mess… You cut your legs shaving (twice)… With no time to wash your hair, those unruly bangs that you just HAD to get are being a menace, and the clothes you threw in the dryer last night are still damp.
Traffic on the way to work is a nightmare, and you get halfway there before realizing you left your coffee on the kitchen counter, right next to the notes for the presentation you have to give later.
Your first three meetings are filled with unhappy clients who don’t seem to understand that you don’t predict the future and that investing in the stock market is a roller coaster ride. Then you spend the next three hours running around the office in your new flats that, albeit cute, are giving you horrible blisters on your heels. Because your morning was so rushed, you had no time to pack a lunch and are forced to eat a frozen meal that you can’t even remember purchasing. Your thirty-minute lunch break leaves you unsatisfied and groggy, but the day must go on! Your co-workers are suddenly helpless and require your help on every little thing, meanwhile your boss is hounding you about deadlines. You spend the rest of the day feeling like Stretch Armstrong.
By the time you finally get everything finished, you are leaving work well after your regular time, but the day doesn’t stop there, because as you’re driving home you suddenly remember that you have basically no food in the house and need to go to the grocery store. And apparently so did everyone else. After you fight the lines, check out, load your car (keep in mind, it is still raining), drive home, carry in the groceries, walk the dog who gets even more muddy, you realize that you left a full bag of groceries at the checkout line. Cool.
At this point in the day, I am a pin drop away from crying, and since my husband isn’t home for another hour and my dog is too wet and stinky to cuddle, the next best thing is to text with my friends. Only, once I start venting about my day, expecting (and hoping) that they will agree with me about how awful it was, I get the opposite. Their words are not helpful. “It could be worse” followed by a list of all the things that didn’t happen but could have: you don’t have cancer, your mom is still alive, your husband isn’t cheating on you. A guilt trip on “being ungrateful”: at least you have a job, some people don’t have hot running water for even a quick shower, some people have to go to the laundromat. The list goes on and on. Sure, yes, all those things are true. In the grand scheme of things, I am blessed. And I am grateful. But that doesn’t change the fact that today was not a good day, and that all the millions of little things that went wrong piled onto my shoulders and got too heavy, and just for a minute, all I wanted was for someone to agree that today was not a good day.
Tonight, I will enjoy a (large) glass of wine while I wait for my husband to come home. We will eat a nice dinner, watch a movie, and I will go to bed early to set myself up for a better day tomorrow, and I will fall asleep feeling happy knowing that my bad day is over, and that I do have a good life.