I Run So I Can Eat Chocolate

I woke up to that small, stupid kind of mistake that already tells you what sort of day it’s going to be.

I’d put an alarm for my tea, like I always do, and then I forgot to stop it. Just this sharp little noise in the background, and suddenly I was thinking, no, I’m not driving today. I’m staying home. Not even for a deep reason. Just… tea. And a forgotten alarm. So I worked from home.

The funny thing is, it is like it was a gift. Oh, that’s nice. And it’s sunny. The sun gives me energy. I could hear it in her voice—like she’d opened the curtains and the whole house had lifted a little. For her it was the opposite. There it was grey. Cloudy, raining, cold. And that makes everything heavier without even asking permission. We were talking from two different seasons, basically. I was in summer, and she was moving into autumn. It’s strange how weather can feel personal, like it’s doing something to you.

When she asked what gives me energy, I didn’t even have to think long. The sun. Just the sun coming back after so many days of rain. It’s not special, but it becomes special when you’ve missed it. It changes the mood of everyone. You see people outside and they look… lighter. Like they remember themselves again.

I told her about the run.

The day before, I’d decided: tomorrow morning, I run before work. It sounds confident when you say it the night before. In the morning it’s different. In the morning you’re warm in bed and you start negotiating with yourself like a lawyer. Am I sure I want this? But I’d decided already, so I did it.

Half past six. I went outside. And what I noticed immediately was: it wasn’t dark. That matters so much. When it’s dark, everything feels like effort. But this was that in-between light, like the day was still thinking about becoming the day.

I don’t run a lot lately. So it wasn’t impressive. Five kilometers. Also I was doing this very small kind of running, not like sporty, more like… okay, we are moving, we are not stopping, that’s enough. During the run, I had no energy. During the run, you just survive your own decision. But after—after I was finished, I felt clean inside. Like something clicked back into place.

And the best part was not even the running. The best part was knowing I didn’t have to do it later. Because usually the whole day you carry it like a weight: Oh no, I still have to run after work. And then you’re tired and you’re annoyed and it becomes this thing. But that morning it was done. The day could start and it wasn’t chasing me.

Then we started talking about people.

Because yes, of course people give you energy. And they also take it. If you live next to someone who is negative all day, it’s very hard to stay positive. You spend your own energy trying to lift them, trying to help, trying to keep the atmosphere from sinking. And then at the end, you have nothing left. It’s not even dramatic. It’s just math.

She asked what gives me a burst of energy if I don’t go running.

Breakfast, I said. But really, it’s not only breakfast.

It’s my cat.

He sleeps outside at night. Every evening he wants to go out, and he always has, because we got him when he was six months old and he grew up like that. In the morning he’s there waiting at the door until we open. It’s so normal that it becomes part of the day. But when, very rarely, he isn’t there… we worry. Immediately. Where is he? What happened? So when he is there—most mornings—it’s like a small relief, a small happiness. My kids and I, we’re happy. Not my husband. Or, he’s happy, but not like us.

We love that cat. And he gives love back. It’s simple. He’s there. He wants to be near you. He has his places in the house—his special sofa, sometimes the chair—and during the day he’s inside with us. If he needs to go out, he goes to the door and lets us know. But at night he goes out and that’s it.

And honestly, we’re lucky because we don’t need a toilet for him inside. I’ve been in houses where you walk in and you can smell it immediately. You know what it is. So I’m grateful for our situation. We can leave the house during the day and it’s fine. I hope it continues.

Fruitloop asked why the cat gives me energy, like what is the reason. And I said it, and I laughed a bit, because it’s almost embarrassing how much we care.

When we come home—school, work, anywhere—the first thing is: Where is the cat? We don’t even ask where is the husband. We ask where is the cat. My husband cannot hear it anymore. It’s a little bit sad for him, maybe. He doesn’t really understand the relationship we have with our cat. He likes the cat, yes, but not the same. Dogs he likes too, but we don’t have a dog because that is more work. A dog needs you. The cat is… easy. You give him food. That’s it. And now in winter he’s going to get a little bit fat. Which, honestly, I like. I like when they’re a little bit bigger. It’s comforting.

We moved from pets to sleep and food, because energy is also your body, not only your mood. Sleep is important. If you’re tired, you don’t have the same energy. Your mood changes. Everyone’s mood changes.

Food, yes. Food can change your energy, but not only because of sugar or vitamins. Sometimes it’s psychological. In France, food is important. Going to restaurants is important. If we have a plan to go to a restaurant, it gives me energy just because it’s something positive waiting for me.

Cooking at home—I do it. Today I made couscous. I like cooking, but not on a high level. Standard. Fresh ingredients. Not something finished in the microwave. But still… a restaurant gives me more energy.

Because in a restaurant, you have the service. You have nothing to do. You only give your pay card at the end. And you don’t have dishes. Dishes matter. Also we always start with an apéritif. Not a starter. A drink first. It’s like a little signal to the body: we are entering a nice moment now.

The tutor told me what gives her energy: sleep, and a clean house. When the house is tidy, she can focus. She doesn’t have to carry a list in her head. I understood that immediately. I’m the same. I feel personally satisfied when the house is clean. You feel good after. And sometimes it lasts—maybe a few hours, maybe a few days if you’re lucky.

But it’s difficult. Because cleaning is never finished. You clean one thing, and then you see another thing. Fruitloop she can clean the bedroom, fresh sheets, everything perfect, and then she walks past a wall and suddenly the wall is dirty and she can’t stop thinking about the wall. And then she wipes the wall and now the room needs cleaning again. I laughed because yes, yes, exactly. I have too many plans in my head. I start doing one thing and then I see something else and it’s impossible to only do the first thing. If it’s in my head, I have to do it. My husband says sometimes I’m a little bit crazy with cleaning.

Even her curtains become a story. She has two big windows in he office, and she needs to wash the curtains, but with the rain there’s no place to hang them. Unless she hangs them back up in the office to dry, but then she’s looking at them thinking, they’re dirty. Then she cooks dinner and she forgets. The next morning: curtains. Then after that she drops her son at school: laundry. Then something else. And the curtains are still there like a thought you can’t close, but remains forgotten for another day.

At some point we talked about energy being drained by sickness, and I told her I’d been sick a few weeks ago. Fever, no energy, and also medication—I’m on strong medication for my illness, and sometimes I have pain in my body, and it makes my mind negative. It pushes me down. That’s the best way to say it. It takes energy.

And then there are days where I have too much energy—usually in the morning. Last week I had a few days off and I cleaned the house and moved around everywhere. My husband always says I do too much in the morning and then in the evening, when he wants to watch a film or a series, I always fall asleep. It’s true. Sometimes it takes three evenings to finish one movie because I sleep. He gets nervous because he wants to finish, and I’m gone.

I do try to fix low energy with coffee. I drink three or four coffees a day. And coffee is not only caffeine. Coffee is a reason to see someone. Sometimes I drink coffee with my sister-in-law—she lives next to my house now—and it makes me happy. You have plans. You have a small social moment. You hear news. It gives you something.

Work is mixed. Sometimes it gives me energy, sometimes it drains it. Last year was heavy. Too many claims to clarify. I worked a lot. This year I feel it might be quieter, and that already gives me relief. But also I sit too much. That’s not good for the back, not good for weight, not good for anything.

When I’m at the office, I move more without thinking. I start with coffee with colleagues. We go outside on break and walk twenty minutes. Fresh air, a bit of talking. It’s good for mood and energy. At home, it’s different. You can take breaks, yes, but somehow I feel I work more at home. There’s no colleague to drink coffee with, nobody passing your door, so you just stay on the screen and sit.

And also—this is something that annoys me—people in the village, older people, even my mother-in-law, when they see I work from home they think I do nothing. Like I’m just… there. They don’t see the work on the screen.

Still, working from home has benefits. Since corona, it’s normal. You finish work and you’re already home. You can do private things. You don’t drive. In the morning I can start earlier because I don’t need to commute.

My commute is thirty-five minutes in the morning, forty in the evening. It’s okay. We don’t have much traffic here. In other cities it’s worse. And when I go to the office, I can visit my mom on the way home. That’s also something.

But if I’m honest, I wouldn’t be happy working only from home.

I like the office. I like the mix. I have good relationships with colleagues. We’re a small group in a big building—so big we have more toilets than people. I even told the tutor, laughing, that I have two toilets for myself. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s also somehow satisfying. You can choose.

I can choose my work-from-home days too, because my bosses aren’t even in the building. Germany is where I work, but my bosses are in Belgium or the UK. My boss works from home more than me because he lives far away. So I have flexibility. I usually tell one colleague just as information—if I have an appointment after work, I say I’m working from home. But officially, I can do what I want. I’m profiting from this situation while it lasts, because maybe one day it changes.

In three weeks I’m going to Belgium for three days—headquarters, meetings, team building. Every hour is planned. And I already know I’ll be tired when I come back. My worry is: who will do my work while I’m gone? And also, stupidly, I worry about my house. The tutor suggested I make a cleaning list for my husband and daughter. They don’t like my lists. They’ll probably eat McDonald’s. My husband can cook, but he does a lot outside—we have a big garden, and before spring there’s so much to cut, herbs, trees, all of that. He has his outside work, and I manage inside more. Sometimes we help each other, but not equally. Not really.

And then, of course, the biggest energy topic of all: children.

When my daughters are happy, I’m happy. That’s simple. But sometimes—especially my youngest—she costs me a lot of energy. Teenagers are not easy. It’s not like the past. We had more respect for parents and adults. Now it’s a different relationship. Sometimes it’s like friend, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s exhausting. They receive more gifts, more what they want. And there’s pressure too—from other children, from social media, from Instagram, from influencers.

I see it with beauty products. Expensive brands I never heard of. And phones. The pressure starts so early. They want iPhones, the newest models, and they don’t understand the value of money. We also go on holidays more than our parents did. When I was a child, we didn’t go on holiday because there was no money. I had chocolate only at Christmas and Easter. One gift at Christmas. That was it. And we weren’t unhappy. But now these things are normal for them, and when I talk about my childhood, they don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t land.

Sometimes the negative energy comes from my oldest daughter. When she’s uncertain—about studies, about work—and she tells me her feelings, it costs me energy to find arguments, to motivate her, to show her it wasn’t a bad choice. If she feels better after I talk, I regain energy. If I say the same things and nothing changes, it makes me unhappy too. It’s hard to see your child unhappy. Not laughing.

At the end of the day, when everything is heavy, I have small ways to recover. Sometimes a drink—an apéritif, a beer, something stronger, just one glass. I like gin and tonic. I don’t drink a lot. One is enough.

And chocolate. Always chocolate.

I love chocolate. All kinds. Milk, dark, everything. But I buy too much. If it’s at home, I eat it. The last week I ate a lot because I bought a lot, and then suddenly nothing is left and I buy again. This morning I ate a lot—during break, with coffee with my husband, chocolate again. And I said, No, I was running this morning, like the run gives me permission. And then after eating, I regret. Always the same. But in the moment I don’t think. I just eat. I can’t stop it.

I don’t even really share. But I don’t have a choice, because they pick. My youngest likes chocolate too. My older prefers Haribo. My husband tells me I eat too much chocolate, but if I look at how much he eats… I think he eats more. We have the same discussion and nothing changes. We have a common sweet place in the house, so everyone goes there all day and takes something.

Fruitloop asked if energy is something you can create. And yes, of course. Habits. Small changes. Running in the morning. Tidying at night so the morning feels lighter. I understand that.

But then she asked what habit I want to improve for stable energy, and that one made me quiet.

Because I know the answer is: I need to do more for me. I need to think more about me. But the problem is I don’t know what. Without cleaning, without a little running, playing tennis, visiting a friend, coffee with my sister-in-law—I don’t have distractions. I get bored, but also I can’t rest. If I have free time, I don’t relax naturally. I sit in front of the TV, but I feel guilty. I feel like I should be doing something. It’s always in my mind.

We even have a piano at home—my daughter used to have lessons when she was young—but I have no motivation to learn. It’s nice to hear. That’s it.

So I’m still searching. Something new. Something that is mine. But it’s not easy.

What I do know is this: if the morning is light, if it’s not dark, if the cat is at the door, if the kitchen isn’t a bomb, if I’ve already done the thing I was dreading—like running—then the day feels possible. Not perfect. Just possible. And sometimes that’s enough.

And yes, on those days, you can eat chocolate and watch TV later. You can even say it out loud and not feel too guilty.

I’m trying. Quietly. In small habits. One run. One clean kitchen. One cat at the door.

That’s how my energy works.