No Make-Up Days

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“I’m sorry there are no make-up days available.”

The text from my friend referred to a specific event that had to be cancelled with no chance of rescheduling, but the phrase resonated with something much deeper. It was two weeks after my 50th birthday, and it seemed “there are no make up days,” was a motto for my second half century. 

“That’s it exactly,” I texted back, “Life is short and there are no make-up days.” 

Over the coming days and weeks, I became a broken record, fixated on this idea. “I’m closer to the end than the beginning, and there are no make-up days,” I told my therapist. 

“It isn’t like it was in my twenties,” I told my mom, “I’m acutely aware that there are no make-up days.”

In my journal, the phrase became a bludgeon: “I need to get serious about my writing career. I have to stop farting around, doing shit I don’t want to be doing. I have to stop dragging my feet with these tiny baby steps. There are no make-up days.” 

No make-up days, I thought as I drove to the office for a job that was always meant to be a stopgap. No make-up days, I reminded myself as I climbed into bed, exhausted and dragging. No make-up days, my Daruma doll growled, glaring at me with his one eye. (I will fill in the other eye when I get a book deal — the goal to which I enlisted him to hold me accountable.)

There are no make-up days. I had better hurry up, already, and get on with my life. 

One of the ways I started honoring no make-up days was revisiting a long-standing desire to develop a meditation habit. 

“Be here now,” the soothing voice of the meditation teacher intoned. “This is the only now you have.” 

Eyes closed, posture in what I hoped was relaxed attention, I breathed in the truth of the mindfulness lesson. There is only this now and when it has passed, I cannot get it back. I have to feel what’s real in this one. 

There are no make-up nows. 

No make-up nows does not mean I am doing this now wrong. In fact, it suggests I can’t do it wrong. Whatever is, is. I get to choose what’s next, but I don’t need to rush toward it. And I don’t need to judge this now because it isn’t the one I thought I would have. 

I had been telling myself there are no make-up days as a way to light a fire under myself: Do the things you want to do. Stop doing the things you don’t want to do. Do it NOW. And by the way, if you don’t, you’re doing it all wrong. 

As I emerged from that meditation, I did so somewhat sheepishly. I had glommed on to wisdom and fashioned it into a weapon with which to punish myself. 

“There are no make-up days” does not mean “hurry up, already.” Or, it doesn’t have to. In fact, it can mean the opposite: Slow down a bit. See what’s now. Feel what’s now. 

I had been ignoring now by chasing when: as in, I’ll be happy when... I had repackaged my anxiety and called it wisdom. 

Not long after I defanged my self-judgment-in-sheep’s-clothing, a freelance job posting crossed my path: an agency looking for ghostwriters. I followed the link and liked what I saw. I could get paid to write. It wasn’t a book deal, but it seemed worth a shot. I applied. I gave a day — with no make-ups — to the application process. The whole time I told myself “this is a longshot. They want people who have written books professionally before,” I kept going. After several hours of work, I clicked submit and assumed that was the last I’d hear from them. 

The next day, I made the decision I’d been avoiding for weeks. The day job really wants and needs a full time employee in the position I fill, and I do not want to be a full time marketer. I told them it was time for me to move on. We agreed to transition out of our current relationship. (I will still support them freelance.) 

I was excited and terrified. I did the thing! I was moving toward what I want (with baby steps toward Daruma’s other eye!). But where would the money come from? People are not, exactly, knocking down my door to pay me to write. 

That evening, an email landed in my inbox. The ghostwriting agency wanted an interview. I wanted to believe the universe was rewarding me for being brave and for accepting a (baby) step toward what I want. Maybe it was. Fast forward two and a half weeks, and I have signed a contract to become a ghostwriter and even raised my hand for my first project. 

When I sat down at the computer in my home office to draft this essay, the Daruma doll squinted at me with one eye. A ghostwriting gig isn’t a book deal. Daruma and I both know today is not the day he achieves binocular vision. Still, now when he growls at me, “There are no make-up days,” he follows it up with, “enjoy the fuck out of this one.”