Day Off Vibes
and the importance of a thought bubble dump
I had an entire post scripted and ready to publish, but then I got a day off, and a day off changes everything.
Alissa from a day ago sounded so tired, so worn out. She sounded like she believed the Orange Buffoon might actually send Iran “back to the stone age,” but then that mercurial bastard backed down, and the sun came out. We all came out the other side (for now), and I couldn’t possibly burden you with those vibes. You can refresh the day’s headlines if you want another hellish update, but if you need a day off, could come hang with me.
When I opened my eyes this morning, the sun was straining to burst through my blackout shades. Let me in already!!!!! the sunshine screamed. I opened the curtains and looked outside like Ferris Bueller on his fateful day.
After reading the phrase, “schedule recreation before work” sometime over the past week, I shot a text to my friend Kate; could she meet up for a walk? We could make it fast!
We met at the base of Mount Sugarloaf, a gorgeous hiking luxury granted to Western Mass residents when they need a quick hit of outdoor activity. We deserve this beauty: you can hike to the peak in less than 30 minutes, pausing sporadically to catch your breath if you choose the steep path the way we did. Kate and I released weeks’ worth of updates and vents and celebrated over this view:
(Ok, I didn’t stop to take a picture today; I took this one in October, so it’s a little more lush and warm here than it was this morning.) As we made our way back to the parking lot, Kate shared her schedule for April and May, and I kept true to my word. I told her, “I’m going to let you go. Godspeed!” and waved goodbye. She had shit to do.
On the drive home, my endorphins pumping and the sun still shining, my brain tried to pipe up and ruin my fun. It tried to tell me I had shit to do, too… on my day off.
There’s so much to get done! my evil brain said. You’d better get busy!
But I’m no fool. Didn’t my brain know that I’m forty-five now, that my personal new year began last week on Wednesday, April first, exactly one week ago? If my brain thought I was working my ass off on my day off, it could think again. However, I knew that in order to have any semblance of peace, I had to empty my quickly-filling thought bubble.
If you look inside a woman or a mother’s thought bubble, it will have one of those old timey calculators constantly spitting out data on a long piece of slender paper. It never stops.
If you look inside a man or a father’s thought bubble, there is an old man sitting on a log playing the banjo.
Okay, perhaps these visuals are polarizing, biased based on gender, and not quite fair, but this is my Substack guys! You want to push back? Go start your own!
I know most people don’t journal the way I do, but rest assured: I found a way of emptying a thought bubble without journaling that takes mere minutes and is incredibly freeing. I just thought of this today and wonder if I can trademark the process because it’s 2026, and everything must be monetized.
