Borrowing from tomorrow

I’m ill. I’ve been ill for a few days now. Not catastrophically ill. Not heroically ill. Just that grey, flattened version where standing up feels like a negotiation …and your body keeps reminding you it would quite like a word, if that’s okay, when you have time, and yes we’re busy, but honestly it really would be good to have a word.

I went from “a bit run down” to “under the weather” to “oh wow I actually can’t move” over the course of a few days, and truth be told I kind of saw it coming. It certainly didn’t come out of nowhere.

For the past 2 months, I’ve been working flat out on a big, important, complicated project. The “holiday break” was punctured with work and that punctured the “break” part of it so there wasn’t really the end of year decompression I probably needed after a long year. Which meant for some long, sleep-interrupted nights. Then back into long days. Long weekends too.

You’ve had times like this yourself: the kind of sustained intensity where you stop noticing how tired you are because everyone is tired and there’s work to do and this matters. You just knuckle down, crack on, plough through, roll up your sleeves… you know the drill. We’ve all been there, and this week was that.

Sunday and Monday I could barely get out of bed. Tuesday I wasn’t much better, but that was the final delivery day so I did all those things because we needed to (as the delightful phrase goes) “get shit done”. And shit, as it tends to in these situations, did get done.

And here’s the bit I’m not going to pretend away: I’m proud of my contribution. Even sniffling and sneezing and snotting [apologies for the visual here; disgusting but sadly accurate], I showed up, and showed up pretty well, all things considered. Clear when it counted. Calm when it got contentious. Balancing conviction and compromise. That matters to me.

[And yes, I am also chuffed with the alliterative triptych that just tumbled out of my brain like an otter cub tumbling into a woodland stream, briefly shocked, then delighted. And whilst I’m at it, I’m also feeling pretty smug about the phrase “alliterative triptych” too… remarkable what Lemsip can do for a man!]

But pride doesn’t override biology. And, as it turns out, it’s a crap energy source.

The bill arrived anyway. Promptly. Politely. Like a bill placed quietly on the table by a patient yet expectant waiter.

It’s the time of year for viruses. It’s wet, it’s cold, and kids all round the world are dutifully sharing each other’s germs via the social petri dish of the school classroom and bringing them all home for the family to enjoy. My wife has been ill. Young Jack (12) has been ill. Our house has assumed a slightly subterranean feeling: blankets on sofas, muted voices, the kettle working overtime. Somehow Ben, now 15 going on 16 [I know I can’t believe it either], has powered through the whole thing with the constitution of a rhino who gets the idea of illness but doesn’t think it’s really something for them.

What’s struck me isn’t the illness itself; that part was obvious enough.

It’s the pattern.

There’s a familiar story we tell ourselves about pushing through. Sometimes that’s exactly right, and Tuesday was one of those times. But left unchecked, pushing through can quietly drift into pretending there’s no cost.

Your body will accept IOUs. It just has a habit of calling them in all at once.

You can borrow the energy from tomorrow. You can delay the payback. But it always arrives, calmly and on its own terms.

This isn’t about working less, or caring less.

It’s about being aware of when you’re borrowing from tomorrow, and knowing, in the moment, that you’re going to need to give something back. If you need to push through today, you’re going to need to pull back tomorrow.

Not as a reward. As repayment.

Sometimes pushing through is necessary, and worth it. When that’s the case, you go for it. I’ll be there to offer a cuppa and a biscuit when you’re flagging a bit.

I know you care about what you do, and how you show up. You’re that kind of person. I love that about you, and so do the people who depend on you. So you wouldn’t stop showing up even if I told you to, and that’s just as it should be.

My only nudge would be this: be clear with yourself when you’re borrowing, and do it deliberately, rather than letting the deficit become the default.

That way, perhaps, you avoid defaulting on repayments the body refused to delay.

So do me a favour: maybe just have a quick word with yourself about where you are once in a while. You’ll save a fortune on tissues if nothing else.

Push through when it matters.

Just remember you’re borrowing from tomorrow.