About the Time I Was Just a Silly Little Corpse with a To-Do List

There are weeks when you feel alive, thriving, glowing—your skin is clear, your inbox is manageable, and your laundry is, miraculously, folded. And then there are weeks when you are nothing more than a silly little corpse dragging yourself from task to task, fueled only by caffeine, panic, and the faint whisper of “it’ll be fine” you keep telling yourself in the mirror.

These past couple of weeks? Oh, I was the corpse. The corpse was me.

I woke up every day feeling like my soul had quietly packed a bag and left for a sabbatical without telling me. Meanwhile, my body was stuck doing human chores—answering emails, buying cat litter, pretending to care about spreadsheets—while my brain was just static noise and elevator music. I did my skincare routine like a ghost trying to lift a fork—slow, confused, and very aware I should probably be haunting someone instead.

My to-do list was out of control. I’d cross off “buy toothpaste” only for “call the bank about suspicious charges” to appear in its place. And for reasons I can’t explain, I still kept adding more—like setting myself a Duolingo goal again. Because nothing says “this woman has her life together” like getting harassed by a cartoon owl while lying face-down on the floor.

And then, in the middle of all this, I flew to Playa del Carmen. Not for a vacation—no, I wasn’t sipping margaritas on the beach like a functioning adult influencer. I went to finish paperwork. Paperwork that took forever. Paperwork so cursed I half-expected a Mayan deity to appear and tell me I’d angered the gods. I spent my days in hot, airless offices, signing the same page four times because “the signature must match the signature on file,” which—newsflash—was from 2013 when I apparently still had hope in my handwriting.

By the end of it, I was sunburnt, frustrated, and suspicious that I’d aged three years in a week. And yet—somehow—I kept moving. I got the paperwork done. I came back. The cats were alive (angry, but alive). The bills got paid. The deadlines were met. My credit card debt was still horrific, sure, but the corpse kept functioning.

And here’s the thing: we never give ourselves enough credit for these weeks. The corpse weeks. The weeks where you feel like you’re failing, dragging yourself from errand to errand, convinced you’re barely surviving. But in reality? We’re getting it done. We’re showing up. We’re making moves. We’re ticking boxes that felt impossible.

Sometimes, the wins aren’t shiny or Instagrammable. They’re not beautiful Greek sunsets or Paris cafés. Sometimes, they’re getting your paperwork finished in Playa del Carmen, making it through the week without completely combusting, and proving to yourself that even when you feel like a silly little corpse, you’ve still got stamina, grit, and an unshakable ability to just. keep. going.

Because the truth is: we’re not just barely getting by. We’re low-key killing it—just with dark circles and questionable posture.