When Life Gets Heavy, Keep Things Light

Note: This post was written on July 14.

This week has not started out well. Monday, we said our final goodbyes to our cat Jack. It’s Tuesday. I’m at work, having difficulty focusing, and last week’s friction points have carried over into this week with some additional weight. But life goes on. I have to go to work. There is no pet bereavement policy (though there should be). I still need to make progress on my project. I still need to write a Substack post. And I have to be mindful of my mental and physical health. When things get hard, I’ve learned the best thing to do is to keep it light. Not light in levity, but in mental load, so I’m going to heavily rely on my routines and habits and default to what I call autopilot mode because I know I won’t have the capacity for much else.

Estimating cash-in and cash-out, billing, and calling customers about past-due invoices is more than my mind can handle, so at work, I’m going to lean into my systems and a weekly checklist I’ve perfected over the years. The systems and checklist remind me step by step how to do these things. I’ve done these things so many times; all I have to do is check the boxes that I did them. I know that if I follow my systems and checklist, as I have every week for years, I’ll be ok.

My project and this Substack rely heavily on writing. Thankfully, the project involves documenting what I’ve been doing for years, so autopilot works great here. For Substack, I’ll do what I seem to do best: write about what I’m experiencing and hope it lands, connects with others, and helps someone. I typically write in the morning at home and during my lunch at work. This should allow me to make progress. If by Friday I’m further along than where I was on Monday, I’ll be ok.

My guitar playing is a staple of my mental health. It’s where I escape and get lost for an hour or so most days. Nothing on my mind except playing. If I can just show up and play for a few nights this week, I’ll be ok. Maybe I’ll play Bang A Gong, Hair of the Dog, All Right Now, and Living After Midnight for the 10,000th time—it doesn’t matter what I play as long as I show up. My workout schedule during a normal week is pretty rigid. This week, I just need to move, even if it’s walking at work and/or around my condo complex at home. I need to get outside and move my body.

I need to recognize that this week will be different than most and I have to set my expectations accordingly. I also need to recognize this may spill into the following week, but (and this is a big but), I can’t let this relaxed schedule become the norm. And it easily can. There is a fine line between acknowledging circumstances and making excuses. I’ve blurred the lines before. To prevent the slip into excuses, I track my actions. I use a small notebook to log the events of the day. A simple record that says I showed up, with maybe a few notes. Yesterday, an entry said: Vet appointment 3:30 pm, feeling very sad. Today, a reminder to make progress on my project and start writing a Substack post. Later today or tomorrow morning, I’ll review the notebook. I’ll check off what I got done, brain dump what’s on my mind, and repeat the process.