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When You Suddenly Realize You’re Having One Of Those Kinds Of Days

Sometimes You Just Need To Roll With The Flow

By PG BarnettPublished 4 years ago 6 min read
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Image by Pete Linforth On Pixabay

Today is turning out to be one of those days, and It all started with breakfast and our bathroom shower.

There’s a place where my wife and I love to have breakfast. It’s about fifteen minutes from our house, the food is excellent and the prices better. All of the staff know us by first name (yeah, we go that much), and we always clean our plates.

Except for this time, either my appetite had flown the coop, or my stomach was nervous to the point I couldn’t finish.

On the drive back to the house, my wife asked if I was okay, and I admitted that I wasn’t and I was pretty sure I knew what the problem is.

Monday morning, I’ll be taking a flight to my company’s home office in Virginia.

And I hate to fly.

No, I’m not terrified of flying. Over the years, I’ve flown hundreds of thousands of miles.

I just hate all the rude people I end up coming in contact with. I can’t stand the hours of waiting for departure, standing in line like being loaded on a cattle car, and breathing stale recirculated air.

I deplore waiting to either rent a car, hire a taxi or an Uber, checking in at a hotel, finding a place to eat, and then trying to sleep in an extremely uncomfortable bed.

And more than all of those hates, I hate not being home with my wife.

So although I was feeling down about my travel thoughts ruining a perfectly good breakfast, I figured I’d just lose them by focusing on some of the things I’d planned to do today.

Like re-caulking the base of the master shower door.

I’d like to proudly admit I’m a super-duper fixer-upper kind of handyman, but I’m really not.

Unfortunately, my reasoning for attempting to reseal the base of the shower door frame this morning was more predicated on how cheap I am than by my innate ability to fix something.

No matter how simple it looks.

Yeah, I just didn’t want to fork over the dough to have a professional come out and take care of it. My thinking on the matter was that all I had to do was dig out and scrape away the old caulking and put new clear silicone calking in its place.

Easy-peasy.

Uh, not so easy-peasy.

First of all, when I visited my local Walmart, I saw this liquid nail kind of clear glue/silicone, and I thought to myself, “this stuff will be great!”

I convinced myself this new product would work so much better than the clear silicone I’d used in the past.

So I purchased two tubes.

Here’s how I envisioned the repair job going down in my head. I was going to use a pair of C clamps to hold the base in place and then apply a tube of this wonder caulk and bada bing, bada boom, I was going to fix that puppy right up.

My intent was to clamp the shower base to the edge of the tile then squeeze out a neat line of the glue/silicone from one wall to the other.

Problem Number One — The C clamps were two small.

Problem Number Two — I had to use clear cellophane tape in an attempt to hold the base against the tile, which didn’t stick very well to the base, no matter how dry it was.

Problem Number Three — The glue/silicone, which was supposed to come out in a precise stream like the last silicone job I’d done, came out in bulbous clumps.

Problem Number Four — Because of the glue/silicone coming out in wads of sticky goo, it was almost impossible to have either a neat or practical solution.

I managed to get this clue/silicone on my hands, my blue jeans and the floor mat. While I hoped I’d managed to deliver the payload in the appropriate places, that mess was all over the stainless steel base.

Good job P.G.

Now I have to let that conglomeration dry so I can come back and apply a proper bead of silicone I should have used in the first f*cking place.

And then my honey asked me, “baby, are you planning on writing today?”

And I Immediately realized I was having one of those kinds of days.

Some folks call it burnout, some call it malaise or brain exhaustion. I just call it one of those done in kind of days. Done in by the constant strain of working at a side hustle, and trying to write something worth a crap each day.

In all honesty, I was exhausted by the stress of my eventual flight to the home office and having to spend a few days with people I usually talk to on the phone and never see.

I was pissed at having to be away from my anchor in these rough seas we’re often forced to sail in, my darling wife.

It was aggravating AF being forced out of my routine of normalcy and trying to do something I really suck at.

So here I was, worrying about future s*it I know I’m going hate doing, and then knowing deep down, I need to keep writing regardless of everything else going through my brain.

Yeah, right before I went down to the office today to write, I knew I was having one of those kinds of days.

But sometimes instead of bucking the system, instead of trying to swim upstream or paddle against the current you need to let go and just go with the flow.

And so, I told my darling I was going to come down and try to write something, and if it wasn’t working, then I was just going to shelf it for the day.

So what If I have nothing to post tomorrow?

Big freaking deal.

I’m not going to make things worse by resisting common sense.

We could have entertained going for a walk, except for it’s overcast, damp and misting and chilly. Either way, if my brain wasn’t going to cooperate, I intended to just shut it all down.

Shut it down and spend the rest of the day reading or sitting with my baby watching the boob tube.

Yes, sometimes you just need to let go and drift.

We all know this writing gig of ours is tough to manage whether we’re writing full time to support ourselves, trying to get to the point where we can, or writing when we feel like it because it makes us feel good.

But sometimes, just like I did today when you suddenly realize you’re having one of those kinds of days; when nothing seems like it’s going to work out very well for you, you just have to let go and roll with the flow.

Drift along just enough to get your courage up, and that inner fire stoked until it’s blazing again.

Remember, we’re not robots. We all have days like this when we discover just how Human we really are.

What I find amazing is how living a life as a writer still continues to teach someone at my age so many valuable lessons.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Thank You So Much For Reading

Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]

© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

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About the Creator

PG Barnett

A published author living in Texas married bliss. Lover of dogs living with two cats. Writer of Henry James Series and all things weird and zany in this world of ours.

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