Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

My alarm goes off at 7:15 and I hit snooze. I take the 5 minutes to let my annoyance at waking up fade. I try to picture the exciting aspects of my day so I can begin looking forward to all that I will do. My mornings all have the same steps but they get done in different orders depending on my mood. Today I choose to make breakfast first. I grab an energy drink and put on This Podcast Will Kill You. The heating in my apartment is broken, so even though the heat is only set to 60, the temperature is 80 in the apartment. I open the windows and turn the thermostat dial down even further to below 50 in the hopes of cooling off, but I still sweat making breakfast.

I decided to make waffles, half plain and half with chocolate chips, which was not the best choice as the bag of chips had melted in the cabinet. The box recipe I’m using only has one set of waffle instructions and I don’t feel like trying to halve 1/3 cup oil, so I make the whole batch. Because I only own a mini waffle maker this means I made about 15 waffles this morning, now I have plenty of leftovers for the coming days.

After I finish eating, I take a few minutes to start writing this post. I make my bed and avoid the temptation to just sit back down. I brush my teeth and wash my face. I get dressed in shorts and a sports bra with a linen button-down draped over the back of my chair in case I need it for video sessions. I write in the last page of my guided journal in Spanish. I miss it already. I feed my fish Victor, and turn his tank light on. Lastly, before I start work I lower the window in my room I am a) paranoid that someone out on the sidewalk might be able to hear the session and b) bothered by how loud the cars are driving past.

Work starts at 9 am. I work from home as a therapist and I really enjoy the WFH lifestyle. The biggest perk to me is I have more time in my day now that I’m not commuting. I did make the most of the commute as free reading time (I took the MBTA), but in many ways, it was tough to have a definitive time of no return when starting your day. There are some days when my mornings aren’t as ideal. There are days when my depression prevents me from having any motivation at all. Those days it is a privilege to be able to start work in my pajamas. I can let the structure and routine of work convince me to engage in the things that are good for me at my own pace. Usually, I am dressed, with my teeth brushed, and face washed by 1 pm. When I used to work in person on those days I’d have to settle for whatever I could muster at 5 am, because I’d have to catch the bus at 6. I spent the whole day stuck at my least motivated which didn’t encourage any further motivation.

Today my first client was a no-show and we couldn’t get anyone to fill the slot, so I spent about half an hour reading. I’m currently reading Go Gently by Bonnie Wright. Overall, I like it so far. The only thing I can see being a little annoying is that there are actionable steps like every 3 pages and they’re good advice but I’m not always reading when I have a chance to investigate which actionable steps are appropriate for my life. Which just means I’m frequently backtracking. I also used some time to keep up my streaks on my Spanish learning apps. My second client is not a straightforward story, but she wound up not being available and by the time it was known, there wasn’t enough time left to try to fill the slot. My third client is very consistent so we had a good session.

Lunch comes around at 12. I have some leftover Rueben ingredients, but that hasn’t been calling my attention in a while. Instead, I think I’m leaning towards a hot dog and veggies which is exactly what I had for dinner last night. I have several things I could do with the hour, but I decided I’m going to continue watching the Taylor Swift eras tour on Disney+. I started it the day after it came out, but I only get one hour for lunch. I genuinely cannot explain why I’ve waited so long to return to it. I just sometimes do start something I really enjoy but then can’t seem to convince myself to return to it.

Back to work for another four hours. I typically get 15ish minutes between clients. Today I use them to just walk around the apartment, get some more water, and give my eyes a break from staring at a screen. My last client no-showed and we have no more clients to try for the slot. Three no-shows in a day isn’t great, but my scheduler and I are following protocol to get that resolved. At 4:30 pm, I have to consider my options. I want to be in the habit of going to the gym after work, but because I’ve been sick it’s been so long since I last went. I’m trying to decide if I’m up for it today. Yesterday I did a little bit of an indoor workout to ease my way back into things without exposing anyone else. Today my cough and sneezes are completely gone. I decided to go even if only for a little bit. The gym is right next to a grocery store and I need to pick up two things.

After I get home, I call my mom and make dinner. I decided I wanted to make a risotto again. I fully believe risotto is such an easy recipe. It is a one-pan recipe where you just add each ingredient one at a time. That being said, I tried to cook from memory and I did not have enough of each ingredient. And then I was so caught up in trying to figure the ingredients out while talking with Mom that I didn’t cook it at the right temp for long enough. I thought it was inedible. I thankfully had impulsively picked up strawberries and chocolate at the grocery store. So I had dessert for dinner.

I start cleaning up my dinner mess and I touch the risotto to see if it’s congealed enough to be thrown away without me worrying about it leaking out of the bag. Given how cheesy it is even a soft touch of a finger pulls away a glob of the risotto, with some rice, so I taste it. And wouldn’t you know it, the risotto finished cooking once I gave it the chance to sit in it’s own heat for a little while longer. I’m no longer hungry, but I package it up for lunch tomorrow.

I spent some time writing this. It was nice to make my life aesthetic. I lit a candle, put on some soft music, and reflected on my day. A thought I’ve been having for a little while and then encouraged by Go Gently is that candles are wasteful. I don’t always recycle the glass because cleaning out the wax is a frustrating process. I have been committed to burning up the candles I have before I get tempted to buy more. But I’m also now considering how much do I actually want more candles? Thinking logistically, I have the Yankee Candle Village in Deerfield on my bucket list and I really want to make a candle while I’m there. I want to remain open to being tempted by candles I find there. So I may have one last candle purchase in my near future. After that, I can start researching sustainable alternatives. My initial thought process says an oil diffuser is probably the way to go.

To wind down the day, my initial intention was to finish and schedule this post, start another episode of This Podcast Will Kill You, and do some knitting. However, after scheduling this post I spent another hour thinking about/planning future posts. At that point I was kind of hungry so I had a small snack of chips and dip. I watched a couple YouTube videos, did my skincare, journaled, and am on track to be in bed ready for sleep at 11 pm.