Friday Morning, "Fine" Came Out of My Mouth Before I Could Think

On Friday morning I shared the elevator at work with a colleague from another department. "How was your week?" they asked, and before I had picked an answer, "Fine, it goes fast" was already out of my mouth. As the floor numbers climbed, what I had said stayed in my ear. Whether it had really been fine, I wasn't sure myself.

At my desk I went back over the week from the start. Sorting some material I had been handed on Monday without quite knowing how dragged on until Wednesday, and on Thursday I ate lunch at my desk while writing an email reply and left it half done. Yesterday on the subway home I dozed off and rode one stop past mine. I jotted the week down on a Post-it, only up to Thursday, and one sheet filled up. It was not a small amount to fold away into the single word "Fine." Next to my monitor sat a mug that had stood there since Tuesday. A tea-bag stain had dried onto the bottom.

The Name It Calls Me By

Before going to brew fresh coffee, I opened still().

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28 (WEB)

What caught my eye was whom the verse is calling: those who “labor and are heavily burdened.” I had never once called myself that this week. I had only thought I'd simply spent a week, and had never once said aloud that it was hard. The work on my desk stayed just as it was. But where "Fine" had been sitting, a small "you worked hard" seemed to come in and sit for a moment.

I made coffee in the pantry. While the smell of the beans rose, I wrapped both hands around the paper cup. As the warmth spread into my palms, for the first time that morning I felt unhurried. Back at my desk, I washed the mug that had been there since Tuesday. I watched for a long while as the dried tea-bag stain loosened into the water. On the email I had put off, I wrote only the first line and saved it. Monday's me can pick it up from there. Outside the window, the sun touched the glass of the building opposite and began to glitter.

Today's breath — Breathing out long, say once in your heart, "I worked hard this week too."