Today was an amazing regular day

Today was an amazing regular day. I add regular because it wasn’t a truly amazing day. A few weeks ago I had a day where I had the day off work while the kids were in childcare and I was able to have a long lunch with two of my very best friends who live a long drive away. That was a truly amazing day.

Today was a regular day. I had to work, cook and clean, and look after my kids just like any normal weekday. But it went about as well as a regular day can.

I went for a run after I woke up. I meditated. I did 6 hours of focused work and made a small breakthrough on a difficult task that was making me feel really dumb in the last few working days of last year. In the little breaks between focus sessions, I cleaned the house. I did a yoga video and I wrote in my Obsidian vault.

I picked the kids up and had all the attention and patience for them in the afternoon. The evening was a breeze, and even now after they’ve gone to bed I have the energy to come back here and write this, instead of playing 30 rounds of Royal Match on my phone on the couch.

I did everything the way the personal improvement and productivity books and podcasts I consume said I should! I barely looked at my phone all day!

Alas, I haven’t cracked the code of living a happy and productive life. I haven’t finally figured out the secret to regularly having days like this. My day didn’t unfold this way because of any special effort on my part. It was all due to the mood I woke up with in the morning.

I woke up more than keen to go on a run. I had some real new year energy going on. I was jazzed.

And that morning run triggered an upward spiral of activities that carried me throughout the day, more motivated as I went along. All the while I was thinking, “remember this! Remember what it feels like. Imprint it on your brain”.

I tell myself to remember because somehow I always forget. In the last year, I’ve been on a roughly monthly cycle of feeling really good some days, pretty good most days, and dog-shit for about a week.

It is hard to explain what being in a depressive state is like, but for me, it is like… extreme apathy. I wake in the morning and my brain says something along the lines, “what is the point of running? what is the point of anything?” and despite being so enthusiastic just a week or two before, I believe it. I push through and meet my responsibilities. But it is a rough time.

Anyway, I’m over it! I’m done. I understand we can’t be happy all the time, but there has to be a way to get back to being on an even keel like I have been in the past. Whether it is hormonal or something more serious, I’m getting it sorted in 2023. I am sharing this here for some accountability. And also in the hope that it will help me remember my amazing, regular day.