An afternoon with nothing to show for it

I had three hours to myself and a list that could comfortably fill six. Return the shoes. Buy the birthday present. Clear out the drawer that no longer closed. I was halfway to finding my keys when I sat down.

The house was quiet. My children were out with their dad, and nobody was asking where anything was. I could hear the refrigerator. I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had sat on the sofa without folding something.

Rest, in my head, required a reason. A fever was acceptable. A completed list was ideal, though I had never personally encountered one. Simply being tired felt like poor administration.

I made tea. I picked up a novel I’d been renewing at the library without reading. For the first twenty minutes, I kept remembering things I should do. I wrote them on a piece of paper, which was as close as I came to negotiating a ceasefire with my brain.

Then I read. At some point, I fell asleep with the book on my stomach. When I woke up, there was a crease on my cheek and my tea was cold. I hadn’t improved my home, my body, my career, or my understanding of anything important.

The drawer still wouldn’t close. I ordered pizza for dinner. When the children came home, I had enough patience to listen to a very detailed explanation of a game I did not understand.

Nobody asked what I had accomplished. That question, it turned out, had mostly been coming from me.