And other lies I tell myself before 9 am.
Every night, somewhere around 10 p.m., I become deeply optimistic about the woman I will be tomorrow.
Tomorrow Tina is fucking incredible.
She wakes up early, she drinks water before coffee, she takes her vitamins without finding them still sitting beside the coffee maker six hours later, she eats protein and she exercises.
She works eight productive hours, maintains a reasonably clean home, nurtures meaningful relationships with both of her children, answers all outstanding emails, completes the laundry cycle including the mythical final stage where the clothes actually make it into drawers, and has dinner planned before anyone asks, “What are we eating?”
Tomorrow Tina has a skincare routine.
Tomorrow Tina probably journals.
Tomorrow Tina goes to bed at a responsible hour.
I fucking love Tomorrow Tina, she has her shit together.
Unfortunately, every morning she leaves Current Tina to execute the plan and Current Tina has ADHD.
I Have a System. Actually, that’s a lie, I have approximately 47 systems.
I have lists, I have lists of lists. I have notes in my phone containing things I needed to remember so urgently that I wrote them down and then never looked at them again.
I have screenshots I took specifically so I wouldn’t forget something, buried among thousands of other screenshots I also took specifically so I wouldn’t forget something.
I have calendar reminders, alarms, sticky notes. Things placed conspicuously in front of the door so I physically cannot leave without remembering them.
I have walked around the thing in front of the door.
My brain is an interesting place.
I can forget why I walked upstairs before reaching the top step, but ask me about something completely irrelevant I became interested in three years ago and suddenly I’m delivering a TED Talk.
This makes productivity complicated, because I don’t lack ambition. I lack a reliable relationship between intention and execution.
Those are very different things.
Here’s How Cleaning My Kitchen Works.
I decide I’m going to clean the kitchen. Easy, normal adult task.
I wash three dishes; pick up a sweater someone has inexplicably left on a kitchen chair. The sweater belongs upstairs. I bring it upstairs. While upstairs, I notice there are towels on the bathroom floor. I pick up the towels. The hamper is full. Obviously I should start laundry. I bring the hamper downstairs.
On the way, I remember I meant to check whether we’re almost out of toilet paper. We are. I should add that to my grocery order before I forget. I pick up my phone, there is a notification. I open it.
Twenty-seven minutes later, I am reading about whether people in Victorian England actually slept sitting upright.
I don’t know how we got here.
Eventually I look up.
There’s a laundry basket sitting in the hallway.
A sweater is on the stairs.
The bathroom still has towels on the floor because apparently I picked up different towels.
And the kitchen?
Three dishes are clean.
Nailed it.
Then There Are the Children
I have two kids.
C is 14, E is 12. They are wonderful, funny, intelligent human beings whom I love more than anything on this earth. They are also apparently incapable of locating an object without first involving me.
“Mom, where’s my charger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you help me find it?”
“Did you look in your room?”
“Yes.”
I walk into the room.
The charger is on the bed.
Not under the bed.
Not tangled behind furniture.
On. The. Bed.
I sometimes wonder what would happen to this family if I disappeared for 48 hours. Not in a dark way.
Like a scientific experiment.
Would they adapt?
Would someone eventually discover where we keep the garbage bags?
Would anybody replace the toilet paper roll?
Would they simply stand in the kitchen calling “MOM?” into the void until I returned?
We may never know.
The Productivity Industrial Complex Has Some Explaining to Do
There’s an entire corner of the internet devoted to telling women how to optimize themselves.
Morning routines, night routines, meal prep, habit stacking, ten-thousand steps, protein goals, water goals, skincare, supplements, meditation, journaling, exercise, career development, financial planning, quality time with your children, quality time with your partner, quality time alone, keep your house clean, maintain friendships, read books, get eight hours of sleep and don’t forget to practice gratitude.
I am grateful.
I’m grateful if everyone has clean underwear.
Some days I look at the sheer number of things we’re apparently supposed to accomplish to be healthy, successful, emotionally available women and think:
When the fuck are we supposed to actually live?
Because I’m starting to suspect that I could spend my entire life preparing to have a better life.
And Yet, I Keep Making Lists
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you I’ve learned to embrace the chaos.
I haven’t.
I would still really like the kitchen clean.
I would like to know where my keys are.
I’d like to finish one home project before developing an overwhelming desire to begin another one.
I would especially like to stop buying organizational products under the delusion that the correct basket will fundamentally alter my personality.
But I’m learning something else.
There are days when almost nothing gets crossed off my list and something important still happens.
A conversation with my son in the kitchen that lasts twenty minutes longer than I expected.
My daughter crawling into my space to tell me a story that could absolutely have been four sentences but somehow requires seventeen minutes, six character backstories and a dramatic reenactment.
Laughing so hard with someone I love that I forget what I was worried about five minutes earlier.
Sitting down when I was supposed to be cleaning and accidentally having a really good night.
Those things don’t appear on a productivity tracker.
Nobody gives you a little checkmark for them.
But maybe those are the things that actually make a life feel like home.
Maybe I’m Not Behind
That’s a difficult sentence for me.
Because I perpetually feel behind.
Behind on the house, financially and professionally. Behind on things I want to create and on the version of myself I thought I’d have become by now.
There’s always another thing I should be doing.
But I’m starting to wonder if a meaningful life isn’t something you finally earn after completing all your tasks.
Maybe this is the life.
The unfinished kitchen.
The laundry basket nobody has acknowledged for three days.
The kid yelling “Mom!” from another room while possessing fully functioning legs.
The half-written story.
The abandoned cup of coffee I will microwave three times and still somehow never drink.
The dreams I’m working toward.
The plans that change.
The things I haven’t figured out yet.
The people interrupting me while I’m trying to figure them out.
Maybe the goal isn’t to finally become Tomorrow Tina, maybe Current Tina deserves to enjoy some of this too.
Which is a lovely realization.
Very evolved.
Deeply healthy.
I’m proud of us.
Anyway.
Tomorrow I’m absolutely getting my shit together.
I’ve made a list.