Have you ever had one of those days? Days that feel like you just can't get going? From the moment you get up in the morning, sometimes up until bedtime that night, you just feel like you're stuck in neutral. Well cheer up! You are not alone! Why, you ask? Because I am having one of those days! And judging by the silence on this blog page, I've been having one for quite a few years.
It's just one of those mornings where you sit at your desk, stare at your screen, look at the workload waiting for you and nothing is happening. Your brain is on holiday. Your coffee isn't strong enough. In fact, you feel like you need coffee so strong it would melt the spoon while you are stirring it and set off Geiger counters. You feel like you want to throw your cup of ineffective coffee at your insanely cheerful coworker who is the very definition of a morning person. One who walks around with a spring in their step and a smile so wide they look like an advertisement for healthy dentistry. You know that colleague? The one who, apart from being so annoyingly joyful about the new morning, has to absolutely tell you all about the night they've had and how excited they are to tackle the day ahead. All the while you are sitting at your desk staring at them, wondering what they'd look like with a pencil sticking out of their left eye socket.
This morning one of my colleagues insisted on chatting about the weather. How it seems to be getting warmer, how the mornings aren't so cold anymore. How it looks like summer is on the way. Meanwhile I am sitting at my desk trying to get my brain cells to wake up, look sharp and focus on the difficult task in front of me which, at that point, was trying to lift my coffee cup to my face and find my mouth, so I could sip on some woefully inadequate brown liquid and occasionally grunt in agreement as they rambled on. And all I could think of was how I didn't really care about the weather at that point in time. The weather will happen whether I carefully take the time to deeply ponder it or not. All that mattered at that moment was the extreme effort it took to take in some caffeine and not flop forward face down on my keyboard and start drooling on my desk.
Despite what my beautiful wife will tell you, I am not actually a morning person. Yes, I get up before she does and perform my morning tasks admirably. I manage to brush my teeth and shower very efficiently and nobody suspects that I am actually very skillfully sleepwalking my way through it all. If given the choice, I'd rather stay in bed and sleep than having to get up, dress myself somehow and go and sit in an office and drink what is labelled coffee but is the equivalent of some hot water with something added to make it slightly less see-through than when it came out of the kettle.
I'm sure at some point the reality of the day will set in, I will become more aware of my surroundings and the realization that I actually have to perform tasks in order to get paid will dawn on me. Some days this happens quickly and I am a beacon of efficiency. On other days this happens gradually and I eventually find a gear to kick into and tasks get done. But there are days where I regret having to awaken from my deep slumber, stop cuddling my beautiful wife, leave my warm and snug bed and attempt to get the day started. On those days I sit at my desk, wish I had coffee so strong that I could hear colors when I am done drinking it and the world seems to move in slow motion because I am so energized. Or wired. Either way, I'll take it. But alas, no amount of company-sponsored caffeine can achieve that desired state. So I sit staring at my computer screen, willing my brain to perform tasks it is being asked to do but it would much rather be doing anything else.
In conclusion, dear reader, if you have made it this far without falling asleep, murdering your overly cheerful colleague or browsing away looking for new and exciting facts, like if giraffes ever develop a fear of heights, I applaud you. And just know, as I stated at the very beginning of this long and rather pointless rant, you are not alone. I share your pain. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and bludgeon my coworker into a coma using a stapler.
