I’m in my living room with my laptop on my lap, fresh off a meeting I held while bouncing my two-year-old daughter, who is home from school with a fever. My nanny is also home with a fever. My nine-month-old is in her swing watching Blippi. Two dogs are sleeping. Two cats are running around downstairs. My four-year-old is at school. My husband is out doing his own work.

You know the saying — when it rains, it pours. I have never felt that so much as I have the last few weeks.

What’s Coming

I have three weeks of not-normal work time ahead of me. Two weeks of full-time AI training followed by a week in France for a conference.

And I’m putting so much pressure on myself, on top of all of it, to get other things done. Personal things. Side things. House things. Things that don’t have to happen this week and that I have absolutely decided must happen this week.

I want to be clear about something, because I’ve written this kind of post before and I want to keep being honest: this isn’t burnout. This isn’t I-can’t-get-out-of-bed. This is where do I start. It’s the discombobulated, all-the-tabs-open kind of overwhelm. The kind where the to-do list isn’t too long, exactly. It just isn’t sorted.

The Plan

I met with my career coach again yesterday and we talked through it. We have a pretty good plan. We always do. She is great at that.

The problem is never the plan. The problem is the part after the plan, where I have to actually do it. Sometimes that’s the hardest part. The blank page between knowing what to do and starting.

When I hit that page, I do something predictable.

I go organize something.

The Garage Is Done

The garage, by the way, is finished. (If you read the last post, you know.) It looks awesome in there. Every tool has a home. Every bin is labeled. I am very proud, and yes, I will be giving tours.

My husband has a few boxes left. The deal is that they need to be gone by September. If they are not gone by September, I get to do whatever I want with them. He knows what that means. He has been warned.

But here’s the thing nobody told me about finishing the garage: as soon as it was done, my brain started scanning the house for the next thing.

The Laundry Room

So now I am stuck in the laundry room.

Not literally. Mentally. I’ll sit down to work on a real, important work thing, and instead I’m thinking about the shelving. The bins. Whether I can redo that wall. Whether the detergents should be grouped by use or by frequency. I am deep in there, and I haven’t moved a single thing.

I know exactly what’s happening. When my mind feels pulled in a million directions at work, when the projects are stacking, and the timelines are moving, and the new stuff is coming faster than I can file the old stuff, my brain looks around for something it can actually put in order.

A laundry room cannot fight back. A laundry room cannot ship late. A laundry room cannot send you a Slack message at 8pm. You move a bottle, the bottle stays moved. That is a deeply satisfying transaction when nothing else in your day is offering you one.

The Honest Thing

Here is the honest thing, the one I have to say out loud:

I love this.

Not the fevers. Not the meeting on the couch with a toddler on my hip. Not the nine-month-old needing me ten minutes after I finally sit down. But the whole shape of it, the busy-ness of it, the sheer amount of life happening at once — I love it.

I will long for these days. I know that. There is going to be a version of me, ten years from now, who would give a kidney to have a sick two-year-old, a nine-month-old in a swing, a husband building something, and two dogs asleep on the floor on a random Tuesday. I know.

So I’m trying to stay in it. Even on the days when I am clearly using the laundry room as an emotional support project.

What I’m Trying

Pick one thing. Do it. Then the next.

That is the whole plan. That is what my career coach and I landed on, dressed up with timelines and structure, but underneath it, that’s all it is. Pick one. Do it. Then the next.

The laundry room can wait an hour. The work thing gets the hour. Then maybe the laundry room gets fifteen minutes as a reward, because I know myself, and I’m not going to pretend the Ikea hack isn’t calling.

What’s Waiting

In a couple of weeks, my family and I are going to the south of France. (It’s a work trip, but we’re extending it a bit!)

I keep coming back to that. Not in an escape way — I am not running from any of this. In a that is what this is all for way. The work, the busy, the meetings on the couch, the half-organized laundry room, the boxes that have to be gone by September.

At the end of the day, the south of France is waiting. My husband is waiting. My kids are waiting.

When it rains, it pours. Fine. Let it pour.

I’ll be in the laundry room.