One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is that, sometimes, pushing yourself a little bit harder than you think you should, taking one more step after you decided you’ve given up for the day, or just convincing yourself that even just a little bit is better than nothing at all… All of that can make the difference between peace of mind and feeling like you’ve failed. I worked for twelve hours today [wrote this on a Wednesday, rather than my usual one-week-ahead, which really only matters to me since I worked 7.5 hours on the 31st and then 12 every work day since then]. I spent the entire thing running around, chasing down a problem, and trying to run herd on a group of people who were placed at my disposal to help figure something out. I ended the day barely on my feet at a quart to nine in the evening, so mentally and physically exhausted that I had to take a break between walking to my car and driving it to the restaurant where I’d made my takeout order. I was done. I had barely enough energy for a shower and to climb the stairs from my main floor to the second floor where I’d planned to eat my dinner at half past nine, watch a little anime, and then play video games until exhaustion overwhelmed me. I had done enough. Even I couldn’t have asked more of myself than I’d already done, because I not only did everything I expected to do, but everything that came up along the way.

I spent ten hours today dealing with the results of a bit of work from yesterday afternoon that turned everything I’ve been doing for months on its head and then, in an incredibly efficient two hours, managed to cram in all the stuff I’ve been too busy to do for the last week. I did everything on my to-do list except for the two items I’d wisely marked as optional this morning: writing a blog post and working on my National Novel Writing Month project. You see, neither of those things are obligations. Neither of those things will suffer if I don’t attend to them today. I can easily make up for not doing either one or both of those things with a bit of concerted effort on a day when I’m less exhausted and can at least avoid falling further behind on any day when I’m not as absolutely slammed by work as I was today. I’d even gone so far as to emotionally process this decision to do none of the writing goals I’d set for myself. I was, after all, exhausted. I was, after all, entirely wiped out. I’d done enough. It was time to relax for a couple hours and then hopefully get some sleep.

Instead, I am at my desk, writing this blog post as a little bit of a warm-up to the familiar hour-before-midnight writing session that I have used as the basis for most of my past successful NaNoWriMo sessions. I’ll admit that I probably don’t have it in me to stay up as late as I once did. I’m already low enough on sleep that I can’t afford to just push through it with coffee, energy drinks, and youthful spirit. Hell, I can’t even use that last one now that I’m in my 30s. I remember when my dad was this age. Youthful spirit doesn’t apply in this way anymore. I have until midnight to work and, if that’s not enough, well, there’s always tomorrow. But I’m not working because I need to. There is no obligation here. There isn’t even a desire to get a 30-day word update streak on the NaNoWriMo website. I already made my peace with not getting that.

No, I’m here because, at the end of even the longest, most exhausting day, I am a storyteller. I am a writer. I am doing this because I love the act of writing. I am here because I love the way a sentence comes together and the way you can build a story out of a bunch of isolated parts yanked together at the last minute by the pull of a single thread. I am here because this is who I am at my very core. I write. I tell stories. I do not let anything stop me from doing either. I may well come to regret this tomorrow, when my leg muscles have tightened up from sitting weirdly in my computer chair, when my elbows hurt because my weird sitting in my chair somehow managed to leave both my arms unsupported by the armrests, when my back is sore from spending even just one more hour sitting up straight at my desk. I will not regret having written, though. I do not know how much I’ll get done before midnight, or before the siren song of exhaustion and aching muscles demands I go to bed. I know that it will be more than the nothing I almost forced myself to do, though.

When the episode of Spy X Family that I was watched ended and I faced the prospect of swapping over to Spider-Man for the last hour before bed, I felt a familiar dark discouragement within me. It is an aspect of my depression. Specifically, the part that says that nothing I have to do as entertainment is interesting enough for the effort required to do it. It is the deep displeasure that comes from knowing all things can seem worthless if you spin them exactly the right way and, even worse, knows exactly how to spin them all so only that side shows. I spent a minute staring at the menu I’d left last night’s game of Spider-Man sitting in before I realized that, what I really wanted more than anything else in the world, exhaustion be damned, was to sit down in my silly little office, at my oddly rough office chair, and write until my tired mind had finished circling the drain of sleep. So I hauled my tired body to this chair, powered on my computer, and got to writing. I am even more exhausted than when I started this, but I really think I might be able to rest more easily now that I’ve spent some time stretching my soul with this beloved exercise.