It is Tuesday. Thirty-nine days.
I opened the contact log at 7:43 this morning. Four entries. Three follow-up dates in the last column. One blank field: Marcus, sent October 5, no date.
Here is the thing about the blank field. It is not that I don’t know the etiquette. I have nearly two decades of knowing when to follow up. Not hearing back in five business days means you send a short note at day seven or day eight, no apology, no explanation for the silence. I have done this so many times I stopped counting. It is just the rule, like there are rules for anything.
But when I work backward through that rule, I find it was built inside a frame. I was always following up as someone representing an institution, managing an ongoing relationship between two companies. The follow-up existed to serve a client lifecycle. I was the person who carried the institution’s interest into the room.
I am currently just myself.
The rule still applies. I will send something short around October 12 or 13. I know this. I still sat with the blank field for four minutes before I closed the laptop.
The October 14 reminder is eight days out. The note I wrote to myself says: “check in. how are you.”
I wrote it because it seemed more useful than a to-do list. Now that I am eight days away I am not sure of its usefulness. I know the status of every thread in the log. I know where the three follow-up dates land. I know what I don’t know.
What I don’t know is whether there is a version of “how are you” that goes past the logistical layer. I have been good at the logistical layer for a long time. The layer underneath is the one I keep circling without landing.
I thought by now I would know what to write in it. I don’t.
There is a specific quality to a Tuesday in October when the active list is done and the next moves belong to other people. Not unpleasant. Not dramatic. Just very quiet.
I walked the dog at 6:15. Made coffee. Sat down at the desk. Opened the contact log, which I did not need to open. Looked at the four entries. Closed it. Opened this document.
For twenty-four years, a productive morning meant a list that got shorter. I had a different inbox at the end of the day than the beginning. Something moved. I am trying to figure out what the equivalent is right now. Not in a self-critical way – I mean actually trying to figure it out, the way you try to figure out the right word and keep circling and don’t arrive at it. A productive morning might just look like this right now. I think that might be true. I am not completely sure.
Doug asked how I was doing last night. I said good. He gave me the look that means there’s a second question and he decided against it. I probably would have said I didn’t know yet, which is the true answer. It is also not a satisfying thing to say to someone who is genuinely asking.
Four entries in the contact log. One response so far. One completed call. Seventeen emails over 157 days, which is not a number that felt like a lot until I wrote it down.
The blank field bothers me more than it should, probably. I am going to leave it blank until I know what to put there. That feels like the honest approach. It might also be avoidance dressed up as discretion, which are two things I am not always able to distinguish from the inside.
Eight days to the reminder. I will write something. I don’t know yet if it will be the right thing.