I slept in a hotel last week

I have to travel about 90 minutes to the office with public transport, if there are no delays. It’s often at least two hours before I actually get there. 

Usually I don’t mind it that much. I like listening to books or music or doing stuff on my phone. 

But sometimes I’m expected at the office two or three days in a row. And I have to travel that distance multiple days. I don’t particularly like that part. 

It means more than a 3 hour round trip every day. Just to commute. 

Then it drains my soul. I start to get annoyed by everything and everyone, no patience left. Suddenly, I hate it. I need at least an hour to myself when I get home to decompress. 

I am fortunate enough that I can choose which days I go into the office. It doesn’t happen very often that I have to go two days in a row. 

But whenever it does, I often decide to go sleep in a hostel or hotel nearby. Somewhere on route, so I can reach the office much quicker in the mornings. No delays, no missed layovers, no headache. I arrive in the office well-rested and energized, instead of with decision fatigue before the workday even starts. 

Last week was such a week. 

I had to be in the office Thursday, Friday and the next Monday. I decided to book a hotel halfway.

It looks straight from a horror story, I know.

Thursday evening I went to dinner with a friend and Saturday we had a party in the vicinity. Other than that, I did nothing. I laid in bed, went for a walk in the -pretty bleek- neighbourhood and I ate some nice dinners. 

I really wanted to get away from my house for a couple days. Just to get some space, some distance. Not because I don’t like my apartment or my partner, but just because it’s nice to look at things from a distance sometimes.

Since I’d had so little planned, I expected to be well-rested and full of energy on Monday. For some mysterious reason, that wasn’t the case. Not by a long shot. 

I was so tired, so wrung-out, you’d think I’d done nothing more than stay up and party all weekend. 

But rule-following as I am, I packed up the room and set off with my suitcase to work. They’re used to seeing me with one by now.

When I arrived at the office, still tired, still just wanting to curl up on the couch, I was greeted by two lovely colleagues standing outside for a smoke. 

They saw me coming with my suitcase, making way to much noise on the stones for such an early morning. 

Greeting me, they asked if I came for anything in particular to the office. I said: “Yeah, the commercial management meeting is today.” My dear colleague looked at me and replied: “Nope, not anymore. It was cancelled this morning.”