Today I don’t feel a hundred percent. You know those days when you think, I should have stayed in bed. I can’t say exactly what’s wrong. I feel anxious, off. I had it in my head that I was going to do two things–two whole things–I didn’t want to do today. First, I was going to call the insurance company of the guy who hit me. I hate adult things like this. Second, I was going to choreograph a dance for a group of teenagers who are taking a lesson tomorrow. I hate choreographing. And not that I hate teenagers, but they’re usually awkward and I’m usually awkward, so when we get together it’s just–well–usually awkward.

However, despite my feelings of impending doom, I called the insurance company earlier today. Just get it over with, I thought, get it the fuck over with. So I did. Before breakfast even. I left a voicemail. Like an adult who’s not afraid of his own shadow or making a damn phone call. As it turns out, sometimes I can pretend. Then after breakfast I actually sat down–well, stood up–to choreograph that dance for the awkward teenagers. Just get it over with, I thought, get it the fuck over with. But I couldn’t because APPARENTLY I threw away the slip of paper with the name of the song on it that the awkward teenagers want to dance to. Something about Cinderella, I remembered. So I started looking online.

Do you know how many freaking Cinderella songs there are!?

And not one of them rang a bell.

Well shit, I thought. Immediately I started shallow breathing and breaking out in a heavy sweat, as if the wheels were coming off. It’s okay, Marcus, I tried to tell myself. But lately it’s felt like so many things are going “wrong,” that my baseline of pressure is so high, that any little thing can send me right over the edge. A small dip in energy, another bill in the mail–any sort of disappointment–and there I go, tumbling down.

Last week after writing about improv comedy, it occurred to me that my “life strategy” of getting butthurt when things don’t go my way would never work on the stage. There you might have it in your mind that a scene is going to go one way, like that you’re going to be an elephant. But if the other guy on stage opens his mouth first and refers to you as his pet monkey, well, you’d better start waving your arms over your head or pretending to eat a banana. Because in that moment it doesn’t matter what you’d intended, that elephant plan is over, and you’d better drop it like a hot potato, mister, if you don’t want to be left behind.

Changing directions at a moment’s notice is really easy to do on statge. But I’m finding it harder to do in real life. Today when I couldn’t find that song I was looking for, I just kept looking, sometimes blankly staring at the screen in astonishment. I can’t believe this is my fricking life, I thought. Eventually, I snapped myself out of it and thought, I’ll do something else. So I decided to clean out my voicemails. Y’all, as much as I bitch about the importance of good customer service, I’m terrible at calling people back. (I’m working on it.) Today I called one girl back who left me a message two weeks ago wanting dance lessons for her wedding, and when we spoke, she said, “Oh–the wedding’s tomorrow.”

Well, shit.

Now I’m trying not to self-flagellate, beat myself up for not calling her back sooner or not remembering the name of that song. I keep telling myself, You’ve had a lot going on, Marcus. It’s not like your life has been a cake walk lately (God knows). I really am doing the best I can to not hang on to my elephants, those things in the past that are over, those ideas about how life should have been or how I should have acted. Because–shit–they weigh a lot, and I’m reminding myself that when you’re in a storm you’ve got to throw everything overboard that weighs you down. That’s the only way you and your ship can survive, by getting light and dealing with what’s happening now–not what you wanted to happen now.

So that’s why I’m currently writing. This blog is number #400 (in a row!), and despite my plan that I was going to choreograph AND THEN write, that’s not what’s happening. Rather, I’m writing, and then “we’ll see.” Looking back over the last 400 days, I’m reminded that I’ve made it through rough ones before, days when nothing went my way or at least not as planned. If I’m being completely honest, which is the point here, no day ever goes completely as I plan it. That’s simply not how sailing works. No, the ocean of life is unpredictable, and as it changes, we must to. One day the wind will fill our sails and carry us along, another it will nearly turn us over. So we buckle down our hatches and adjust course when necessary. From one day to the next, we somehow learn to navigate.