Page 19 of The Happiness Blueprint
“Some help is better than none. Seriously, Saga, I need you to do something. Anything. You did promise to help with whatever you can remotely.”
“I know, and I will. Soon.”
Saga is getting on my nerves big-time. She keeps promising help and then not showing up. She was supposed to contribute too. Social media is something she could do remotely, but so far there has been reason after reason as to why she hasn’t gotten around to it. Last night, she was up late baking sweet-potato brownies for Harry’s school party, for example. I get that toddlers are hard, but he is at nursery. And she has her lunch break. And he goes to bed at seven. I could go on. I’m all alone here, and she continues her life like usual.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Next week.”
“Okay. No problem.”Read: big problem.There’s a change of subject, which means she knows this.
“Do you want to sync your step counter with mine? Trying to do six thousand a day as I realized the walk to the coffee machine and cookie table in the staff room plus bathroom trips only average nine hundred a day.”
“Just drink more coffee. It’ll also make you pee more. Problem solved.”
“Heart health? Heard of it?”
“I walk 6K-plus steps a day, and my heart is in no way healthy, it keeps breaking. Doubt six thousand steps is the solution. Also, sex as cardio is overrated. It starts well but ends in heartache.”
“At least the sex you’ve been having this past yearisstill cardio. After four years of marriage, mine doesn’t even feel like a brisk walk.”
“That is way too much information. You know that I’m more comfortable with oversharing myself than being at the receiving end of intimate-information overload.”
The truth is that since starting this new job, my steps are up. Between the car, the worksites and the office, there are a whole lot of steps happening.
“My biceps hurt for the first time in years. You should try carrying bags of joint compound between the trunk and the warehouse shelf.”
Harry interrupts us now with aMamma!Heinrich is following after.
“He’s asking for you,” her husband says, then adds “Hello” to me.
“A kid asking Dad for his mum is basically demanding to speak to the supervisor,” I tell him.
“Apparently his mother is better at putting pajamas on. Unless she does it backward, I’m interested to hear the difference in experience.”
“He is such a good one,” I say to Saga once he’s retreated out of camera focus with Harry for another pajama attempt. She doesn’t realize how lucky she has been. Unless she has hidden it well, she has never been dumped. Literally. Her success rate of being asked to stay in a relationship is one hundred percent.Obviously, I must be doing something wrong.
“I guess so. Although I do most of it. It’s not like he does bedtimeeverynight.” Sagahasto complain. Terrified I may think that she doesn’t actually do it all.
“Maybe if everything didn’t have to be perfect, he would have more time to help with bedtime.” Saga needs everyone to be on top of everything.All the time.Like she is. Insurances have to be renewed, fridge stocked to the point where she could host a spontaneous banquet, child’s clothes name-tagged and a full tank of petrol in the car at all times. Even though she commutes by bus.
We end the call and I go to bed. The quiet is very quiet so I take a clock from the living room to add some background noise. I check my app and I’m at 6,452 steps. An even number.
I swivel out of bed and my feet flinch as they meet the coldness of the floor. I walk to the window and back, and then do an extra step to finish on 6,461.
ALEX
Personal Calendar
• NEW TASK:Buy more acetaminophen
• NEW TASK:Buy ibuprofen
• NEW TASK:Go for a drive. Only thing that helps headache in the end
SAVED TO DRAFTS
Dear Calle,
