12 Jun Some Days Are Like That
The hotel breakfast room was packed.
Business travelers scrolled through their phones with plates of fruit pushed aside. Vacationers corralled sticky-handed kids, waiting for the waffle maker to beep. A few people hunched over laptops, already deep into their mornings.
I found a spot in the corner, peeled a banana, ordered an Uber, and tried to stay out of the way.
Across the room, I noticed a woman juggling a paper cup of coffee and a plate stacked with food as she attempted to answer a call on her headset. As she lifted her coffee to take a sip, the lid gave way, splashing coffee down the front of her blouse.
She winced, grabbed a napkin, and kept moving, saying “hello” repeatedly before finally yanking out her headset that didn’t seem to be working. At the toaster, her bread popped up, burnt and smoking. When she bent down to grab her laptop bag, the strap caught on a chair leg, and as she yanked it—toppling the chair.
By the time she wrestled her luggage upright and headed for the door, you could feel it—she was having the kind of morning where everything that could go wrong, did.
As she reached the door, she nearly collided with a woman balancing a tray of fresh croissants to replenish the breakfast buffet. They both shifted, performing the polite sidestep. The woman with the tray paused, seemingly taking in the coffee stain, the tangled headset cord, and the weight of the morning hanging around the woman in front of her—then smiled gently.
“Have a day,” the woman holding the croissants said.
She didn’t tell the woman to have a great day. Not even a good day. Just…a day.
It reminded me of the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Nothing goes Alexander’s way either. His brothers get the best cereal prizes. His teacher likes someone else’s picture more. There’s kissing on TV, and lima beans for dinner. Alexander decides he wants to move to Australia.
Even at the end of the book, nothing is tied up neatly. There’s no magical turnaround. No grand life lesson. His mother doesn’t try to cheer him up or point out the silver lining. She just says, “Some days are like that—even in Australia.”
We live in a world that rushes to improve or reframe or spin a bad day into growth. But sometimes what we need isn’t a solution. It’s permission to feel how we feel. No fixing. No offering the bright side. Just the simple acceptance of being exactly where we are.
Not every day needs to be good.
Not every moment needs to teach us something.
So wherever you are and however you’re feeling—have a day.
Sometimes, that is more than enough.