The Bad Day Day
Yesterday Sucked. Today, The Universe Gets Another Chance.
We all have ‘em. Bad days. I had one yesterday.
It began with my morning walk with my friend. We were a mile away from home when it began to rain. Not a gentle spring rain, but a steady, pelting one, causing the temperature to plummet from muggy to bone-chilling. After changing out of my wet clothes, Sam and I met with our kitchen designer, a woman named Christine whom I’ve grown quite fond of and whom Sam and I have been meeting with for literally months. This is a woman who texts me and who I text back and we have a fun banter-y relationship. When I left the room I overheard her tell Sam that she had emailed Linda a selection of drawer pulls. I was wondering who Linda was and why she would need drawer pulls when it hit me that Linda was me. Then, I had a Zoom meeting with my teaching colleagues about our special lesson planned for the day: we would be sharing our work with our students! I was so excited to do this, and had designated some things to read, and imagined them listening, rapt, then bursting with questions about our various creative processes. We held the special class over Zoom, which consisted of students with uniformly expressionless faces and the four of us teachers patting each other on the back before two students finally broke their stony silence to say what motivated their writing: criticism. They hate praise (my method of motivation, specific and heartfelt) because it “feels disingenuous.” So, over the course of the Zoom, I began to question both my writing and my teaching styles. As soon as class ended my sister-in-law Amy called to ask me to come over to drive over to her assisted living facility to find the call button she wears, because she lost it after her shower. I told her I would be over tomorrow morning, then hung up before quickly calling her back because I had an idea where she might look for it. She was eating dinner, so I said I’d call back later. Just go ahead and tell me now, she snapped, clearly irked. I had managed to annoy/let down the person who most consistently depends on me for help.
From start to finish, nothing, and I mean nothing, went right. Still. This is not the first day I’ve had that felt like a scrolling, spirit-crushing series of fuck-ups and affronts. I know I’m not alone in living through a day that doesn’t align, when the fates seem to have hung you out to dry. It feels sad and personal. And the next day, which would be today, the sun rises- well, actually, no, it’s still cloudy- but you get the picture. The day begins. You get out of bed and somehow find it in your genuinely ingenuous soul to give the universe a do-over.