Do you tire of all the perfect lives and stories that you see in social media? Then this series is your remedy. Welcome to Life Sucks where I try to tear away the filters of social media and expose the humanity in my day to day experiences.
Working from and dealing with depression and anxiety has its challenges. Over the years, I have come up with some coping mechanisms that help get through the cloudy days. One of them is to use natural timers, timers that are harder to ignore or turn off. One of them is making a pot of tea. It usually takes about five minutes for a pot of water to boil to make a pot of tea. Those who know me, know that tea is effectively the life blood that courses through my veins.
With these natural timers, I set myself little tasks to do that I don’t feel like doing. It often surprises me what I get done in those short times and because there is some reward at the end, I tend to push through. The other day, I was in the kitchen making a pot of tea and set about emptying the dishwasher. This task usually took most of the time, sometimes with enough extra time to wipe down the counters.
This time, however, I found that I had emptied the dishwasher and the water had not yet boiled. So, I wiped down the counters. The water had not yet boiled. I figured I still had time and so I did the pots and pans in the sink that needed to be washed. Again, the water had not boiled. Not believing how fast I was getting things done and starting to feel good, lifting a little of the cloud hanging over me, I hopped over to the stove and gave it a good wipe. But still the water had not boiled.
By now I knew something was up. I checked the kettle. The lever was pressed to the on position, the water was cold, then I looked at the plug and burst out laughing. That morning while I was still in bed, my girlfriend had unplugged the kettle to use the frother to make some frothed oat milk for her morning coffee. Without knowing it, she had set me up for a twenty-minute cleaning session in the kitchen.
-KMSB