Almost every night for the past seven years or so, I have intended to do great things in the couple of hours between when my kids go to sleep and when I go to bed. Some nights the great things I have in mind are pretty great indeed–writing a brilliant blog post or looking for a job. Other nights the great things are really mundane things in disguise–folding laundry and preparing lunches for the next day. Doing the things will make me feel productive and like a good contributor to society, I believe. But almost every night, I have not done either the really-great or the mundane-great things. I have instead watched plenty of TV, read plenty of status updates, played plenty of word games on my iPhone. I have yet to see how any of these things contributes positively to society, though I would love it if someone could point that out for me.

I am trying to stop feeling guilty about not doing the great things. But I don’t have any energy left to fight the guilt. I don’t have any energy left to do any of the great things. Pretty much every night, I have enough only to park myself on the couch and stare at a screen. All of the wonderful ideas I wanted to write about during the day are gone–driven out by children jabbering, whining, fighting, demanding.

Tonight I am taking a step forward by not trying to do great things. I am just trying to do a thing. This thing I’m doing now, pressing on keys with my fingers. And whaddya know? There are words on this laptop screen! And I might even be sort-of thinking. Good enough for tonight. No clever endings here, just a bye-bye and see you later. Yep.