Lately, I’ve been exhausted during the day. I want nothing but sleep.

My business, my writing, going to the store to buy the two grapefruits I need but forgot to get while there last, all feel draining, exhausting, like hurdles I have to jump over and I was never good at running. 

But just before bed, when I finally give myself permission to give in to the fatigue, it’s like all the motivation I’ve ever had hits me at once. Like that time my sister drank a coffee in Rome and started speaking a mile a minute.

Everything I’ve been putting off, everything that before felt daunting and out of reach, begs me for attention.

The wants and needs and goals I’ve put off during the day in favor of the practical—the urgent but unimportant—come to life. I feel stirred. I feel the sense of urgency to get moving, to do the things that make me come alive.

I’m going to try giving myself that level of permission more often and see what happens.

Because when I let myself have the thing I want, when I stop suppressing it in favor of being productive, buying groceries, and trying to live up to the impossible expectations I’ve set for myself, that’s when I finally want to work on my writing and business.