The Morning After the Night Before (I Wasn’t Even Invited)

I woke up this morning to what can only be described as a crime scene.

Toys scattered the length of the hallway. Blankets dragged from the tables. Cat beds flipped upside down. Feed bowls — every single one — upended, with kibble spread across the floor in that particular pattern that I can only compare to stepping on Lego in bare feet at two in the morning, except instead of Lego it’s biscuits, and instead of your child’s bedroom it’s your entire kitchen, and instead of one small architect of chaos there are fifteen.

Fifteen.

I have fifteen cats. Not one of them looked remotely sorry.

They had, by all available evidence, thrown themselves an absolute rave while I slept. I don’t know what the occasion was. I don’t know who DJ’d. I wasn’t invited, which I think is a little rude given that I pay for the kibble that was now distributed evenly across every inch of flooring, but apparently that’s not the kind of detail that concerns them.

They looked, if anything, rather pleased with themselves.

I, on the other hand, woke up with a headache and a toothache and approximately zero capacity for dealing with any of this. So I cleaned up the kibble — because what else do you do — and then I did what any sensible person does on a day like that. I slacked off. Properly, deliberately, without apology.

I watched lawnmowing videos. If you’ve never fallen into the lawnmowing video corner of the internet, I can’t fully explain it to you, but there is something profoundly soothing about watching someone else tame an overgrown lawn when your own head is doing what mine was doing today. I recommend it highly.

I also pottered around the edges of the bookish things I need to finish — nothing strenuous, nothing demanding, just the gentle kind of work that lets you feel like you’re still moving without having to actually push.

Some days are like that. You don’t fight them. You clean up the kibble, you make the tea, you let the cats sleep off whatever that was, and you keep going gently until tomorrow arrives with a bit more grace.

Tomorrow will be better. It usually is.

(The cats are already eyeing the cat beds again. I’m choosing not to think about it.)

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Author: Suzy

Suzy writes from a quiet corner of rural Tasmania, in a 120-year-old station house that has seen more stories than most people ever will. Surrounded by books, cats, and an ever-growing list of ideas, she spends her time building fictional worlds filled with complicated people, found family, and relationships that don’t always fit neatly into a box. She writes under multiple pen names, exploring everything from hockey romance to military stories, magical realism, and fantasy—each one connected by the same emotional thread: people trying to find where they belong. Her personal blog, Life at the Station House, is where she steps out from behind the pen names. Here, she writes about the quieter side of life—rural living, creativity, community, and the moments in between writing sessions that matter just as much as the stories themselves. When she’s not writing, she’s likely tending to her garden, thinking about her next project, or sitting with a coffee while her mind runs a little too fast and a little too unfiltered.

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