I finished my coffee. Then I went and made a list for the day.
## My Week
I want to be honest about my week, because I think there is a tendency, in these stories, for the person who makes the principled stand to then have a glorious time while everyone else suffers, and that isn’t quite what happened.
I had a good week. Not glorious — good. Quiet. Mine.
On the first day I went to a farmers’ market I’d been meaning to get to for months and walked around for two hours without being anywhere I was supposed to be. I bought tomatoes and a loaf of bread and some cheese and came home and made myself lunch on the back porch. In the afternoon I read. I can’t remember the last time I spent an afternoon reading without also having something on a mental list that I should be doing instead.
On the second day I drove to a state park about an hour from the city and did a four-mile trail on my own. I had not been hiking alone in years. I found that I liked the particular quality of being in a quiet landscape with only my own pace and my own thoughts for company. I ate a sandwich at the trailhead and called Priya on the drive home.
“How is it?” she asked.
“Strange,” I said. “Good strange.”
“You’re not miserable.”
“I’m not miserable. I’m –” I thought about it. “I’m remembering what it feels like to not be managing anything.”