Some Days Don’t Need To Mean Anything

Neutrality is not a bad thing. Some days are just days, and a day that simply passes is allowed. There is no pressure to narrate your entire life, and some days can just exist. It can feel constant to search for meaning, heal, process and think things through in all of life’s complexities, and it is a kindness to yourself to let daily life sometimes just be daily life.

In everyday life, especially in parenthood, we are often encouraged to extract something from every single day. To reflect, to review, to reframe, to learn. All of these things are important to do, and as a parent learning and reflecting are core parts of the job, but it is important to not feel pressure to do this every single day. Some days do not need to teach you anything.

A nothing day can look like: everyone is fed and bathed, the household is functioning but not tranquil, some tasks have been done and it is enough to get by for the day, nothing went wrong but nothing went notably right, and the day just goes by.

These days can be especially prevalent as a parent without a village because there is less breathing room to process events, less time to reflect and assign meaning to things, and less space to analyse things.

You do not need to constantly narrate your life. Normalise on some days not journaling, not wondering about things on a deeper level, not analysing, and not explaining the day to yourself. As Dory says in Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming”.

Be gentle with yourself this week.