At 6:19 my internal alarm clock goes off. It’s intelligent enough to have identified the latest possible time I can wake up and still be in the office by 7am, but apparently not intelligent enough to know today is a Saturday. I curse my body for being unable to sleep in. I feel exhausted and puffy.

I lie in bed for a few minutes in an attempt to delay … what, exactly? I’m not totally sure. Probably the acknowledgement of the difficult fact that I am a human with a body who has to navigate life on this planet. I take some deep breaths (inhale for 3, hold for 3, exhale for 5) and try to convince myself that the way I’m feeling is all in my head and that once I get up and start moving and drink some water and coffee I’ll feel great. Yes! Action precedes motivation!

I brush my teeth, splash cold water on my face, and brush my hair; this is the extent of my “morning routine” (and why I’m able to wake up at 6:19am and be in the office by 7am).

I sit down to drink my iced coffee on the couch next to Thomas, who is drinking hot coffee because he’s a plebeian.

I’m still unable to get rid of the monologue in my head that keeps reminding me that “I feel like crap” and “what is the point of life” but I try to drown it out with another voice that says “Please notice the wonderful things that exist in this moment” and “even though it’s been an awful past few days at work today is a new day and it can be great!”

In my journal I write the following:

“Grateful for:

• A good night’s sleep in a comfy bed
• Thomas, sitting next to me, both of us healthy
• A Saturday with no work
• Sunshine
• California”

Below my list I copy out three times, as a sort of mantra, something Thomas said to me a few months ago: “Just because you don’t feel great, doesn’t mean you mean you can’t have a great day.” He had said it casually, of course, as a patient response to some mini-breakdown I’d been having about being bloated and tired, and its almost humorous simplicity stuck with me. Thomas: my wiser, more logical half.

But – ugh – there that’s other voice telling me I’ve had sleep and water and coffee and my body still feels heavy and bloated and I have no motivation to do anything.

Other other voice: “It’s ok. This is your inevitable week of PMDD. This happens every month. It’s ok to feel bad. It’s not your fault.”

I grab my phone to check my email (even on weekends we operate with an “Inbox 0” mentality) and my swiping to delete is interrupted by an email from San Francisco Public Library: “The material(s) you have requested will be at the library shown below and will be held for you until the date indicated.”

Thank you, SFPL, for giving this day purpose! I must go to the library to pick up my book on hold! Put on your shoes, Maddy, let’s bike to the library! 

I take the scenic route – dirt trails through Golden Gate Park – to the Ortega branch. My legs feel like lead (it’s no exaggeration when I say I find walking tiring when I’m in my PMDD week) but also, I tell myself, I’m so grateful to be in the sunshine and so grateful for this park and so grateful for this beautiful city and all of the flowers and to be moving my body even if it’s so, so slowly. There is so much to be thankful for and so much beauty in this life.

At the library I make my way to the holds shelf but I don’t see my book there. Maybe it’s not ready just yet? I stand confusedly in the shelves and the friendly librarian asks me if I need help, at which point I double-check my email and realize the book is actually available for pickup at Park branch. Dangit! 

Ok, well, since I came all the way here and have never spent time at this branch, I might as well do a quick “library lap.” They have a display for National Poetry Month and a collection of poems by Gary Snyder catches my eye. 

Sitting out on one of the wooden tables, the sun gloriously warm on my skin, I read a poem that makes my heart so full:

I think about last summer when I hiked down to the Yuba on a Friday after work and swam alone in the cold, cold water and feel that memory so viscerally in my body.

I put the book back on its display and bike to the Park branch. I forgot my bike lock, and a man outside offers to watch my bike while I go inside to pick up my book. These little moments of kindness.

Book in tow, I check the time and to my dismay (?) I see it’s just after 11am, the time at which Tom and Ali are having a birthday party for one-year-old Ella in the park. It’s a mere two blocks (less than a minute by bike) from where I am, but every instinct I have tells me to avoid people and isolate because that’s just what you do when you’re depressed and who wants to hang out with a depressed Maddy and what if I show up and am boring and everyone hates me.

But I’m literally two blocks away. I’m already out of the house. The usual inertia is not an excuse!

99% of life is just showing up! Or whatever Woody Allen said! Come on, Maddy, just show up!

Here I am, at the birthday party, showing. The. Fuck. Up. Let’s go.

Tom is blowing up balloons and there are cupcakes of all colors and toddlers with party hats and sunglasses on, and Ali has Ella on her hip and I see a beautiful family and I see friendship and I see love and I walk over to say hi to my friends.