I was already off balance.
I had a weird as hell dream last night. My wife is almost 35 weeks along, so we’re preparing for the new baby which is about to change our lives in ways we don’t even realize are possible. Last night I dreamed my wife had the baby, and it was mine, but wasn’t hers. That’s right, I had a fucked up dream that the baby my wife is carrying wasn’t her baby. In the dream, the mother of the aforementioned baby wasn’t anyone I know, but it led to all kinds of turmoil and conflict at the hospital.
Waking up to that bad dream, especially when I rarely have bad dreams, threw off my state of mind this morning. We had planned to get up and get out. Have a pedicure, maybe go shopping. An easy day is all I had to do.
The smallest of cuts.
We went to Starbucks. About once a week for the last month I’ve been getting the new sous vide egg bites. I started keto four weeks ago and they’re an easy somewhat keto-friendly option there. A few days ago I had gone by a Starbucks and had been told they were sold out. Today when I ordered them they said the region was pulling them because their distributor doesn’t have space for them.
This pissed me off way more than it should have. Why should I have given that much of a fuck about it? I shouldn’t – just order something else and move on. Instead I ordered something else and mumbled something about “fucking senseless” under my breath as I walked away. I could have done without that.
A pedicure should have made things better.
My wife wanted to get a pedicure this morning, and she wanted me to come with her. I’ve never had one, so I was game. I wish I had been in a better state of mind, because I think I would have enjoyed it more.
Instead, I was gnashing around the egg bite thing, the dream, and a situation at work in my mind. None of these things were relevant to my immediate life, and I should have gone on not giving them any further mind.
Finally turning things around.
After the pedicure and a quick trip to Ikea (yes, I said quick, so that much was going for us today), I went off on my own in search of a clear head. Finding a book related to my work situation and starting another about simplifying the things that I really care about helped. I’m not going to call out the books by name today, I’ll wait until I’m done reading them to mention, but there is one exercise I did this afternoon I think is helpful.
I write down two lists; a list of things I care about (whether I should or not), and a list of things which I surprisingly don’t care about (which maybe I should). It was a simple free-form exercise to see what I would write down if I were honest with myself. I’m going to sit down to go over it in a few days, but today it was enough to get it out.
I think I’ve had some bleed between the things I really care about and stuff I can really let pass. I’ve gone through simplifications and resets before, and I think with a baby coming it’s a good time to do this again. In a month, there’s going to be a lot of things on that list of things I care about which simply won’t be in the competition anymore, and shouldn’t be.
For today, I’m not on edge anymore. I know there are things for me to clear off my plate, and being upset about stupid egg bites at Starbucks is one of them.
You Should Write a Book... 