tough days, tougher girls
Yesterday was tough. It started tough and just got tougher. I was running late, my dog refused to eat, my coffee was gross, my head was aching, my brain was foggy. Nothing was going right. I got to the office and logged in to find that I had about 18 hours worth of work to get done in the next nine.
When I saw that, I knew I had about two seconds to decide if I was going to take on this day or if it was going to take me down.
Now, I consider myself to be a motivated human. I pride myself on being great at time management. I am a doer of things, a solver of problems, a real go-getter type. But at the end of a long week, I didn’t want to be any of these things. I sat there wishing I could melt into a puddle and slither down into a nice, warm hole for a nice, long nap.
Instead, I put a new skill of mine into practice and I asked my team for help (If you’re anything like me, you know how hard that can be to do!)
They willingly added to their own full workloads and we pushed through. But, we all made sure to check in on one another and hold each other accountable - “Did you eat?” “Are you drinking your water?” “Will you hang on to my phone? It’s distracting me.” “Do you need to take a break?” “What can I do to help?” “How can I support you?”
In this way, we got things done faster than humanly possible. We wrote, we edited, we approved, we created, we brainstormed. We waited on approvals and inputs, got interrupted by phone calls and emails but didn’t waste a single minute.
We were frustrated, intermittently scatterbrained and focused; we were exhausted and so stressed.
But we did it.
We left the office just a few minutes after five. My brain felt empty, my body felt heavy. I was ready for a glass of wine. I was ready for the whole day to be done.
When I got home, I took a long, hot shower trying to wash away all that stress. I sipped at my wine and moved around my room like a sloth. Then, my phone buzzed. I opened my Instagram to a video message from poppy girl, Becca.
She took the time to say thanks at the end of that long day - she appreciated that I made time for her even with my overloaded schedule and she said she was happy to be on the same team as me. Just that simple message of recognition and care is all it took to turn my attitude upside down. Because, of course, I was going to help her when she needed it. I would do anything for her and she for me.
This, to me, is real, beautiful friendship. It means caring for others when you feel like crap. It’s unselfish. It’s communication about the good stuff and the bad. It brought me close to tears.
That’s what we do at poppy house - support one another. That’s how we get through the tough stuff, how we take on the world, ladies - together.