Me, My Life & Why Part 2

Part 2

At precisely 10:03am, I sat across from a man who’s never once been late, wrong, or interesting.

“This is just a conversation,” he said, smiling the way dentists do before a root canal. “Not a critique. Just feedback. A check-in.”

I braced myself.

The office-safe way of telling someone they’re too much is by using phrases like “scattered energy,” “inconsistent output,” and “doesn’t always follow through.”

And I got all three.

He started with a compliment. They always do.

“You’re very creative.”

Which means: We like your ideas but wish you’d stop having so many.

“You bring a unique energy.”

Which means: You make meetings weird.

“We just need to harness it a little more productively.”

Which means: Please act more like the others. It’s making the spreadsheet people nervous.

He kept talking. I drifted.

Not intentionally, it just happened. He was saying something about synergy and deliverables, and my brain said, “Cool, we’re out,” and mentally walked into a forest.

I looked at the potted plant in the corner of the room and thought about whether I’d watered mine this week. Then I remembered I don’t own a plant anymore because the last one died of neglect and I still feel guilty about it.

“Are you with me?”

Oh. Shit.

“Yes,” I said, confidently. “Absolutely.”

He nodded, clearly unconvinced. I probably blinked wrong.

Then came the dreaded suggestion.

“Have you tried using a planner?”

Sir.

I have tried using a planner, an app, a timer, a bullet journal, a visual schedule, a Pomodoro cube, a habit tracker, a dry-erase wall grid, a set of pastel highlighters that made me believe, briefly, that I could fix myself with colour coding. I have planned my way into paralysis.

But I smiled and said, “Yeah, I’ll give that a go.”

Because that’s what women like me do. We smile. We agree. We suppress the quiet fire that’s constantly burning under our ribs.

I don’t remember the rest of the meeting. I left with a printout called “Optimising Your Workflow” and a new ache in my jaw from clenching.

By the time I got back to my desk, my inbox was already full of polite panic.

“Just checking in!”

“Do you have that deck ready?”

“Any updates? No rush, just checking :)”

No rush. Just checking. My two least favourite lies.

I wanted to scream. Or disappear. Or throw my laptop into a canal and live as a mildly feral barista in a coastal village where no one has email.

Instead, I opened a Word doc and wrote:

Performance Review (My Version):

I remember everyone’s coffee order but not my login.

I can deep-dive a project for six hours or forget it exists.

I am not inconsistent. I am cyclical.

I work best under pressure, but I die there too.

I am not lazy. I’m just tired of pretending I’m not lost.

I didn’t send it. Obviously.

I’m not unhinged.

Just unravelled.

Later that night, I microwaved half a burrito and stared at the wall. I replayed his words in my head, “Just needs more structure.”

Like I hadn’t tried to staple structure to my soul for the last decade.

I don’t need a planner. I need a life that works like I do.

And maybe I’m done being “reviewed” by people who’ve never had to duct-tape their brain into place just to show up.

So no. I didn’t reply to the follow-up email.

I closed my laptop.

I finished my burrito.

And I added a new line to the doc:

May be spiralling. But at least I’m doing it on purpose.