So many things running through my fucking head this morning.
Oy.
You might recall that one of the things Dawna does for me is quiet the noise in my head. She brings me peace. Calms me down just by fucking being near. I don't know how she does it, and quite frankly, I don't particularly care. I just know that when she's here, the constant noise settles into something resembling peace.
Well, she's not here right now.
And so my head has been spinning.
That's nothing new, mind you. It's what I've always done. My thoughts fire in a dozen different directions, all at once, constantly looking for something to improve, something to fix, something to anticipate, or something I should probably be worrying about.
And no, I'm not talking about a bunch of random, disorganized thoughts. There's a method to the madness. Every one of those thoughts has a purpose. Every one is trying to solve a problem, improve a situation, or prevent something from going sideways.
The problem is that they're all trying to do it at the same fucking time.
Maybe it's an idea for a new story. Or a revision to something I've already written. Maybe it's marketing ideas, which is especially irritating because I fucking hate marketing.
Then it's housing. Cars. Investments. Is my investment strategy sound? Are we sitting okay financially? Do we have enough money? Are we secure for the foreseeable future? What about the next ten years? Should I be working more? Doing something else? Finding another source of income?
God, I fret about money constantly.
And then there are the fucking conversations.
Not actual conversations, mind you. Entirely imaginary ones that take place exclusively between my ears.
I'll imagine somebody I know saying something to me. Maybe they're questioning a decision I've made, challenging an opinion, or bringing up something that hasn't even fucking happened. And before I know it, I'm constructing my response, anticipating their counterargument, developing my rebuttal, and then anticipating the counterargument to that.
I'll have an entire goddamned debate with somebody who isn't even in the fucking room.
And it's not enough to simply imagine what they might say. Oh, no. I have to explore every possible angle, every objection, every interpretation, and every conceivable way the conversation might unfold. I want to be prepared for all of it.
Meanwhile, the actual person is probably somewhere eating breakfast, blissfully unaware that they've just spent forty-five minutes arguing with me inside my own fucking head.
And depending on how the imaginary conversation goes, I might even be irritated with them afterward.
For something they never fucking said.
Welcome to Full Throttle Kate.
Then there's the Sage & Ink Book Festival coming up, and I still need to design and order the marketing materials for my table. I've got two fucking weeks.
Did I handle that employee issue properly the other day? Do my people at work understand where we're headed? Do they have confidence in the direction I've set? Is there trepidation I haven't noticed? Do my peers respect me? Does my boss respect me, or does he just know I'll get shit done?
Am I doing enough to secure the future for Dawna and me? Is she happy? Should I be doing more?
Did I come off too strong in that interaction yesterday? Was that email worded properly? Too blunt? Too aggressive?
Too much Kate?
On and fucking on.
My brain never shuts the fuck up.
Now interrupt all those thoughts with inappropriate humor, the occasional episode of low blood sugar, and the effects of a traumatic brain injury, and you've got yourself a pretty accurate picture of what goes on between my ears.
Imagine being halfway through a thought about organizational strategy, having your brain suddenly serve up a fart joke, and then discovering that the original thought has vanished into the fucking ether.
Welcome to my world.
And that's what I wake up to. Every fucking morning. Sometimes in the middle of the night. And throughout the day, no matter what I'm supposed to be doing.
There's always something else demanding attention.
Except when I'm riding.
And except when Dawna is near.
Those are the two things I've found that can quiet the noise. When I'm on the motorcycle, there's the road, the machine, and the moment I'm living in. Whatever was demanding my attention before I threw a leg over the bike can wait.
And when Dawna is beside me, there's a similar kind of peace. I don't feel compelled to solve every problem in the universe. I can just be there with her.
But she's away visiting family right now, and I haven't been riding nearly enough.
So this past week has been what I like to call Full Throttle Kate.
The whole kit and kaboodle, with the circus following close behind.
I woke up this morning going in seven fucking directions before I'd even properly started the day. And the really ridiculous part is that I know exactly what I should be focusing on.
I should be designing and ordering the marketing materials for my table at Sage & Ink.
I should be revising "Spaces," one of the short stories in Undertow.
I should be getting ready for fucking work.
But I'm not doing any of those things.
I'm sitting here writing about the ridiculous number of thoughts running through my fucking head.
And you know what?
Maybe that's exactly what I need to be doing.
Because I was talking to Dawna last night, and I told her that even though I have to work today, I was going to make today my day as much as fucking possible.
I've been feeling a little used by my employer lately. And I don't say that lightly.
Leadership takes a huge fucking toll when you're doing it right.
I'm not talking about having a title, sitting in meetings, making decisions, and telling people what to do. Any asshole can do that. We've all worked for a few of them.
I'm talking about actually giving a damn about the people you're responsible for.
When you take leadership seriously, you put your heart and soul into your people. You think about their well-being, their success, their families, their struggles, and the things they may not feel comfortable telling you. You worry about whether they're equipped to do their jobs, whether they have what they need, whether they're motivated, and whether you've done enough to help them succeed.
You think about the direction you've set for the organization. Whether it's the right one. Whether you need to adjust your strategy. Whether you've communicated clearly enough for everybody to understand where you're going and why.
And when something goes wrong, you don't just shrug your shoulders and say it's somebody else's problem.
You carry it.
You carry the decisions. You carry the consequences. You carry the responsibility for the people who trust you to lead them.
And if you're anything like me, you carry it home.
That's where things get complicated.
Because I genuinely care about the people I lead. I want them to succeed. I want them to feel valued, supported, and confident that somebody gives a damn about their future.
But I also have a life outside of work.
I have a woman I love, a future we're building together, books I want to write, stories I want to tell, motorcycles I want to ride, and a whole fucking world I haven't finished experiencing.
And somehow, all of those things are competing for the same finite supply of time and energy.
The problem isn't that I don't know what's important.
I know exactly what's important.
The problem is that everything I care about seems to come with its own set of responsibilities, and I've spent so much of my life being the person who handles things that I don't always know how to stop handling them.
There's always another problem to solve. Another person who needs something. Another goal to reach. Another thing I could be doing better.
And when I finally have a moment to myself, my brain immediately starts compiling a list of everything I'm not accomplishing.
It's fucking exhausting.
But here's something I'm starting to realize.
Just because I can carry something doesn't mean I always should.
Just because I'm capable of solving a problem doesn't mean it automatically belongs to me.
And just because I'm good at my job doesn't mean my employer is entitled to every fucking ounce of energy I have.
That's a difficult distinction for somebody like me to make.
I've spent years pushing, proving, achieving, and taking on more. I've built a career around being the person who figures things out, the person who gets things done, the person who can be counted on when everything goes sideways.
And I'm proud of that.
But I don't want the greatest accomplishment of my life to be how much responsibility I managed to shoulder before I finally dropped dead.
I've already done the dying thing three times.
I have other fucking plans.
I want to write. I want to ride. I want to build a life with Dawna that consists of more than paying bills and recovering from another exhausting workweek.
I want to have enough of myself left at the end of the day to actually enjoy the life I'm working so hard to provide.
And maybe that means I need to stop measuring every waking moment by what I managed to accomplish.
Maybe sometimes sitting down and writing whatever the fuck is running through my head is exactly what I should be doing.
Not because it moves a project forward. Not because it produces something I can sell. Not because somebody at work needs it.
But because it's mine.
My time. My thoughts. My words.
And this morning, with my brain running at full throttle and a dozen responsibilities fighting for attention, I'm choosing to spend a little of that time on myself.
The marketing materials can wait a few hours.
"Spaces" will still be there.
Work will get what it needs from me today.
But hopefully it doesn't rule the day.
Hopefully, I manage to gain a little ground in today's battle and reclaim the one thing I can never fucking get back: my time.
