The first thing to go is always sleeping late and befriending the snooze button, that insidious invitation to cradle the covers
just a little longer. But what if staying in bed isn’t always about delaying the day’s drudgery so much as soaking in the silence
of the dog’s curls cuddled up to your chin? Sure, that might make the morning routine a bit more rushed, might make breakfast a feature of the commute
during which I should be meditating, apparently, or setting goals for the day to set myself up for efficiency. Sometimes, after parking the car, I sit there
for a minute, close my eyes and do some deep breathing to recover the calm before movement took over. That counts, right? Of course, there isn’t always
time for that pause, and when there isn’t, it could be late morning before I’ve made a list of too ambitious priorities for the day’s remaining
hours. But that’s a form of positive thinking that checks some box handed down by the gurus of greatness who graze in the pastures of adulthood.
Reframing has got to be one of those coveted skills, and if it’s not yet, it should be, dammit! I am prone to relinquishing the priorities, though,
when someone in need lands in my inbox or knocks on my door. How can you be focused while also building meaningful relationships and staying responsive?
Because now, it might be 3 p.m., and that yellow post-it on my desk has started to glare at me. I’ve handled dozens of emails and pop-up situations
but no distinct tasks. And, since I have gotten way better at not taking work home after hours, there are choices to be made. That’s a common pitfall right there:
playing passive rather than being proactive. I have choices to make, just as I have made choices all day. They say we make over 35,000 decisions
in a day. I would have guessed maybe 300, but decision-making is not a practice makes perfect kind of thing. It all just slowly goes downhill until I get home
to those rambunctious curls greeting me at the door. Would getting up as the alarm sounds really make things better? And when the dog has finished
living his way too short life—in ten years or so, assuming we both succeed in making it to the long-end of our life expectancies—will any part of me wish I’d gotten up earlier?
Genevieve Creedon is a scholar, poet, and essayist. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Program and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. Her writing across genres focuses on the wonders and mysteries of earthly life. She has lived in Connecticut, New York, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, and most recently, Indiana, and strives to explore the worlds around her with her canine companions. Her work has appeared in About Place, Cider Press Review, Frigg Magazine, Kelp Journal, Narrative Northeast, Plainsongs, Still: the Journal, and Whale Road Review, among others.
