Hey divas, 

This past week has been, frankly, a shit show. 

Just about everything that could go wrong at work… did go wrong. All week. No breaks. Fires to put out and frantic emails and back-to-back pings on Slack from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. 

Then, on Thursday, I got a call from Pottery Barn letting me know that my Friday morning furniture delivery would have to be rescheduled to Monday. No biggie. Except when Friday morning rolls around, I get a notice from Pottery Barn that my order is out for delivery, and I have to be at my cabin in the next hour, or they won’t deliver my furniture. A hasty shower and breaking the speed limit for half an hour, and I beat the truck to the cabin. 

Only for the truck to not fit in the driveway, meaning I had to load the (excessively heavy) furniture into my own vehicle, one piece at a time, drive it up to the cabin, unload it, and then assemble it all myself. So much for paying for white-glove delivery!

I get home, exhausted, and have to get back to work to put out yet another fire. But as I get out of my car, I drop my favorite coffee cup and watch it shatter on the garage floor. 

At least I have a vacation in a few weeks to look forward to! In Mexico. Where cartel violence has recently reached unprecedented levels in vacation towns. Our plane tickets and Airbnb are non-refundable, it turns out. When it rains, it pours… Father, Son, and Capital One, I guess rerouting to a new destination is worth losing a few dollars if it means peace of mind and being able to actually unwind on vacation. 

With everything piling up, I got to the weekend and felt a mismatch between my values and my actions. On the one hand, I’ve journaled quite a bit about creativity and art, which are of the utmost importance to me. On the other hand, I have been so mentally and emotionally underwater that I’ve not been particularly capable of focusing on the kinds of creative acts that I’m trying to prioritize. And while I fear this newsletter will become my weekly whining about how hard it is to reclaim my attention and artistic spirit, it feels warranted to say that, with everything else going on in my life, the level of effort required to focus on my writing has just been out of my reach.