If you’re an overthinker reading this at midnight, this one is for you.
It’s midnight. We finally put the brushes down, washed the paint off our hands, went to our current home, ate, scrolled mindlessly on the sofa, and then made it to bed. Indrek falls asleep first, I can tell by his breathing. And I just lie there, turning from one side to another, hoping to fall asleep. My body feels so heavy, and my eyes ache from the tiredness. Sleep should be the easiest thing in the world right now.
But my brain goes: what are you wearing tomorrow?
Most of the time, I don’t even care what I’m wearing tomorrow. But now apparently we’re doing this. Running through the wardrobe, outfit by outfit, until we land on something acceptable enough that my mind can finally release it. Okay. Found it. Good. Go to sleep.
Oh, but there’s no lunch packed.
Should I go out? Maybe someone from work wants to come. What do I even feel like? Actually, I think I want ramen. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Okay. Sleeping now.
But did Indrek talk to the builder?!
Because the thing is, we’ve been at this renovation for one and a half years now. The simple renovation of just painting walls and changing floors, which should have been done in 6 months, has taken us one and a half years of decisions, dust, and weekends that disappear into paint fumes.
We have taken a 3-month summer break, one holiday, but countless hours of work, especially for Indrek. And now finally we’re so close. I know we’re close. But some nights, lying in the dark, close doesn’t feel close at all. It just feels like more, because with renovation, there is always something that pops up. And when you do something for yourself, you want to do it right, because you don’t want to move in and be disappointed in yourself for not trying harder.
And my brain has decided that midnight is the perfect time to solve all of it.
The kitchen. Okay. Green cupboards with black accents and a wooden table: warm, lived in, a little bold. I love it. But the green ones are so expensive. What if we just buy white and paint them ourselves? That’s doable. That’s actually a good idea. Except painting cabinets takes forever, and I just want to move in, I just want to be done, I just want to stand in my own kitchen in the morning and make coffee without driving there first.
Okay, forget the painting. Maybe just white? No, maybe then everything would be too white. What about grey?
And what about the details? The small things, the towels, the little things that make a place feel like yours. What colour should the towels be? Not pink. Definitely not pink. But then what? There needs to be some colour.
I should check Pinterest. I should screenshot ideas, make a folder, and have a plan. Okay, I really need to sleep now.
Why your brain won’t let you rest, even when you’re exhausted
I’m a rusher. When I want something, I want it now. And if it’s not moving fast enough, I push. I make lists, I make plans, I ask Indrek if he’s called the builder. Twice. I try to solve the kitchen at midnight because some part of me believes that if I just think about it hard enough, long enough, it will somehow be done faster.
But the kitchen will not be done faster because I thought about it at midnight.
And the thing I keep learning is that things don’t move more quickly when I worry. They just feel heavier. The stress doesn’t speed anything up, it just makes the waiting harder. And somewhere underneath all the spiralling, underneath the outfits and the ramen and the towels that definitely can’t be pink, is just a woman who is tired and wants to be done and wants to stand in her own kitchen and feel like she’s finally arrived somewhere.
That’s not a problem to solve at midnight. That’s just something to feel.
Things work out. They always have. Not always on my timeline, not always in the way I planned, but they do. The renovation will finish. The kitchen colour will be decided, probably over coffee with Indrek on a Sunday, not alone in the dark at midnight. There is time. There is always more time than my brain believes there is at midnight.
I just have to keep letting life remind me.
So if you’re reading this at midnight, phone in hand, brain three steps ahead of you, I see you. I am you, most weeks.
You don’t have to solve it tonight. The kitchen, the thing you said, the email you haven’t sent, the decision that feels urgent at midnight but will look completely different in the morning light. None of it needs you right now. It will all still be there, and you will be better equipped to meet it after sleep than after another hour of spiralling.
Nothing has ever been built by worry. Nothing has ever moved faster because of midnight anxiety. But so many things have quietly resolved themselves, in a calm morning, in a conversation that finally happened, in a moment when you weren’t forcing it at all.
Trust that. Put the phone down. The green cupboards will still be there tomorrow.
And for what it’s worth, I think they’re going to look beautiful. 🤍
If this felt like something you needed tonight, I have a quiet little corner of the internet for you. It’s called The Soft Space to Land, my personal newsletter where I share honest letters, gentle reminders, and the kind of things I wish someone had told me earlier.
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