🙃 Tomorrow, Definitely Tomorrow
A perfectly reasonable collection of excuses that somehow got out of hand
Evan had an extraordinary gift.
Not the kind that earns applause or scholarships or a plaque on a wall. His talent was quieter, more flexible, and endlessly adaptable. Evan could explain why something hadn’t happened in a way that made you nod, sympathize, and briefly forget it was ever supposed to happen at all.
He didn’t skip responsibilities. He postponed them. Elegantly.
This particular morning began with a promise Evan had made to himself the night before. He would wake up early. He would go for a run. He would finally start the thing he had been saying he’d start for months.
He opened one eye at 9:46 a.m.
“Well,” he muttered, squinting at the clock, “that’s basically early in spirit.”
The alarm had gone off at six, but it had done so politely. Too politely. Evan vaguely remembered silencing it while thinking, This isn’t the right mental weather for productivity.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
“I need rest,” he reasoned. “Rest is important. Burnout is real.”
This felt responsible. Mature, even.
He picked up his phone to check the time and accidentally checked everything else. Messages. Weather. A video of a dog wearing sunglasses. By the time he resurfaced, another twenty minutes had passed.
“Well now,” Evan said aloud, “it would be rude to rush.”
The First Excuse of the Day ☀️
Evan eventually stood up, stretched dramatically, and shuffled toward the kitchen. The plan had been simple. Make coffee. Sit down. Begin.
Instead, he noticed the sink.
The sink was full.
“This,” Evan said solemnly, “is a problem.”
He could not possibly start anything meaningful in a space like this. That would be chaos. Art and ambition required a clean environment. Everyone knew that.
He began washing dishes with the intensity of someone avoiding something else. Plates. Cups. A fork he had been meaning to soak for three days.
Halfway through, his phone buzzed with a reminder.
Start the project.
Evan glanced at it and smiled kindly, like you would at a child who doesn’t understand how the world works yet.
“Not now,” he whispered. “We’re cleansing the space.”
The Email That Changed Nothing 📧
Coffee brewed. Dishes dried. Evan sat at his desk and opened his laptop.
The document stared back at him. Blank. Judgmental.
He cracked his knuckles. This was it.
Then an email popped up.
Subject line: Just checking in!
Evan sighed.
“I should respond,” he said. “It would be unprofessional not to.”
The email wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t even important. But it was there. And responding to it felt like progress-adjacent behavior.
He typed carefully. Warmly. Thoughtfully.
By the time he hit send, fifteen minutes had disappeared.
“Okay,” Evan said, leaning back. “Now we’re warmed up.”
He checked another email to make sure.
The Weather Defense 🌧️
At noon, Evan stood by the window and frowned at the sky.
It was gray. Moody. Uninspiring.
“I can’t be expected to do my best work in lighting like this,” he reasoned. “Creativity needs sunshine.”
He considered going for a walk to reset his mind, which quickly turned into scrolling through photos of places he might walk someday when conditions were ideal.
He made lunch instead.
“I need fuel,” he said, assembling something that required far more effort than a sandwich should. “This is self-care.”
Afternoon Rationalizations 🕒
After lunch, Evan felt heavy. Not physically. Existentially.
“This is a classic post-lunch dip,” he explained to no one. “Pushing through would be inefficient.”
He lay down on the couch for what he promised would be ten minutes.
An hour later, he woke up disoriented and impressed with himself for sleeping so deeply.
“Well,” he said, sitting up, “clearly my body needed that.”
His phone buzzed again.
Another reminder.
Start the project.
Evan turned it face down.
“Pressure kills creativity,” he said firmly. “I work best when I’m not being emotionally bullied by my own calendar.”
The Call 📞
Mid-afternoon, his sister called.
“Did you do it?” she asked immediately.
Evan exhaled. “Define ‘it.’”
“You know what I mean.”
“I had every intention,” Evan said. “But today was… weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Well, first of all, the morning didn’t align energetically.”
There was a pause.
“Evan,” she said, “you said that last week.”
“Yes,” he replied, “but this time it was true.”
She laughed, which felt unfair.
“You’re really good at explaining why things don’t happen,” she said.
“Thank you,” Evan said, genuinely pleased.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“It can be two things.”
Evening Optimism 🌆
By early evening, Evan felt a surge of motivation.
This was his time. He always came alive at night. Night Evan was ambitious. Night Evan believed.
He sat back at his desk, reopened the document, and typed a title.
He stared at it.
Then he deleted it.
“That wasn’t right,” he said. “I need to think more.”
He made tea. The good kind. The kind that required patience.
While it steeped, he reorganized his desk. Again. He aligned his pens. Adjusted his chair. Changed the playlist three times.
By the time he sat down, the energy had shifted.
“It’s late,” Evan said. “Starting now would mean stopping too soon. That’s just inefficient.”
The Big One 🌙
As the day wound down, Evan lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
He replayed the day in his head, reviewing his reasons. They all made sense individually. Together, they formed something less flattering.
He sighed.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Definitely tomorrow.”
But the word tomorrow felt thin.
He sat up.
“What if,” he said slowly, “I didn’t wait for perfect conditions?”
This thought made him uncomfortable.
“What if I just started badly?”
That one was worse.
He imagined opening the document and typing nonsense. Messy sentences. Wrong ideas.
His chest tightened.
“No,” he said quickly. “That’s not how I work.”
But a quieter voice replied, You don’t know how you work. You know how you avoid.
Evan lay back down.
He laughed softly, a little embarrassed.
“Okay,” he admitted to the dark, “maybe I make excuses.”
The ceiling did not argue.
A Small Beginning ✏️
The next morning, Evan woke up at 7:03 a.m.
Not perfect. Not terrible.
He didn’t run. He didn’t meditate. He didn’t clean the sink.
He opened his laptop and typed one sentence.
It wasn’t good.
But it existed.
Evan smiled.
“Well,” he said, “that’s something.”
And for once, he didn’t explain it away.
