I fell really far behind in keeping up with my writing. I am a really busy person and sometimes I just want to sleep at night rather than write. So I am going to write a short, fictionalized account of how my busy life interferes with my passions. I hope you enjoy!

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Jeffrey wakes up every day around 6am. His alarm is supposed to go off at 5:30am, but he snoozes that first alarm; The bed is just so god damn comfy. Luckily he showers at night, so he doesn’t have to worry about skipping showers in the morning. He lumbers his body out of his tower of pillows. Reaches his hand out to touch his wife on the arm lovingly. She works a late work shift and he hopes that his movements won’t wake her up.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Jeffrey pulls open the drawer of his dresser and grabs out his change of work clothes. A white shirt, a polo, underpants, socks and pants. A basic outfit for his business casual office job. A shuffling comes from outside the room. Jeffrey’s daughter is awake and playing with her toys. The rambunctious three year old has never understood the concept of sleeping in. He smiles and hurries to get dressed, hoping to get dressed quickly so that his wife doesn’t get woken up from the noise.

Jeffrey quickly gets his daughter dressed and out the door for daycare. His blue Toyota sedan makes a weird noise when he pushes on the brakes. A grinding sound that sounds much more damaging that Jeffrey hopes it is. No time to worry about that now. The drive to daycare occurs shortly afterwards. Jeffrey’s daughter is a talkative, energetic kid even at 7 in the morning. Laughing, wanting music, dancing in her car seat, and all around having a great start to the day. The drop off at daycare is uneventful, Jeffrey’s daughter runs away into the playroom to hang with her friends. Jeffrey then races across town to start work.

The work day is a long drag of questions, answers, data, and projects. Some days it is a lot of fun and fulfilling work. Some days it seems like it just never ends and it won’t ever get better. But Jeffrey keeps pushing forward. Finally 4pm hits and he races back to pick his child up from daycare.

As they arrive home, Jeffrey attempts to distract his daughter with a movie, some toys, or some activity while he prepares dinner. Tonight’s meal is a pork loin chop with greens and rice. A simple dinner, but one that his daughter will almost always eat. Eating dinner takes a bit of time as she at first refuses her dinner and then slowly and surely starts to eat.

As the night winds down, a quick bath, cuddles, a story and lots of blankets, Jeffrey kisses his daughter goodnight, turns off the light in her room, and closes the door. Its 9pm. Jeffrey has to be up in 8 and a half hours. A quick shower shaves a half hour off of that. And now, Jeffrey has a choice.

He has been working on creative projects his whole life. He records a podcast, he writes stories, he yearns to engage with the creative parts of his mind. He can go downstairs and write for an hour, maybe two. But the payoff is that it will be another day where he wakes up at 6am, groggy, sleepy, and worn out. But he always feels so much more alive when he gets creative. He isn’t some sort of gift to the creative process. It could be argued that the arts of podcasting and writing would benefit if he were to abstain from engaging with them.

Plus there was his bed. It had a bit of a divot where he laid down, due to his weight. But it was still a comfortable bed. Sleep was so nice, so comforting, and on days where he got a full nights sleep he felt on top of the world.

But the creative projects would suffer if he slept more.

But he will feel tired the next day.

But the feeling of life being creative gave him was so good.

But the sleep is good for his help.

Giving himself a slight chuckle, Jeffrey headed downstairs to start writing his next story.