(Titian, Sisyphus, 1548-49.)
You wake up and open your eyes, and so begins another long day — though it never feels long enough to fit everything on your to-do list: cook healthy, nutritious meals; stick to the latest workout program (high-intensity interval training, yoga, dumbbell lifts); take your maintenance medication and vitamin supplements; stick to the latest work project schedule and figure out and do whatever is needed to keep the team on track, unblocked, and productive, to keep the customers satisfied and continuing to pay for your company's product; catch up on the books you're reading and look out for what books and articles and blog posts to add to the list; muster the courage to get back to your desk and keep at your writing, your drawing, fighting through resistance in the daily battles and endless war of creativity; track and worry about expenses and savings; plan the future and continue seeking to better understand yourself and the life that you want to lead; slowly and hesitantly explore alternate career options; have another awkward talk with the noisy neighbors across the street that often prematurely wake you and the wife up; tidy up your cluttered desk and keep the house clean; keep up and catch up with distant friends via ultimately unsatisfying Zoom calls; then somehow at the end of the day relax and unwind and get enough sleep — that feels the same as the hundreds of long days that wispily trail behind you (happy memories of the normal past seeming like ghosts dispersing bit by bit every moment) and feels the same as the hundreds of long days that loom ahead for you to keep pushing that boulder of your own making back up the hill where it stays balanced for just a brief moment of peace before hurtling back down and taking you with it again, and before you know it you’re already falling into bed, exhausted, unready to start it all over again tomorrow.
This essay is part of a month-long series of 30 essays.