Girl Attempts One True Day Off

Before I fell asleep last night, introvert-exhausted after a literary festival, I vowed to wake up today and not work. No writing. No emails. No invoicing. No prepping for the week. I’ve been working through too many weekends. If I don’t take a break my brain will take it for me.

5 am: Woke up and stared at the fish tank in the bedroom where I am cat-sitting. There are two sizes of fish, and they seem to run in corresponding packs, weaving in and out of each other’s way. I can’t meditate on purpose but I sure can watch fish for a long time while my brain empties out. I hate exercise but I love biking and swimming because I don’t think about how I Am Exercising while I do either. This feels similar. There are lights set on timers over top of the fish and succulent plants in this apartment and it feels as though they go off and on at random but I’m sure that’s not true. They did however pop on at 4:30 am, an unfortunate time. I think about the Important TV Meeting on Monday and start to play out things I might say, the kind of energy I might give, and then I remember it’s No Work Sunday so I turn on a Gilmore Girls ep on my phone. I place it face down on the bright green bottom sheet. I am lulled back to sleep by the rhythm of those 60 extra script pages of rapid fire dialogue per episode.