I woke up very early today, around 2 a.m. Maybe even earlier – I try not to look at my watch. It is my first night without my daughters in about three weeks. We have just finished our holiday together, and yesterday I drove them back to their mother.
This transition is always difficult. For three weeks, my days were built around having them with me. There were their plans, their needs, their schedules, and simply their presence in the house. Then, in one afternoon, everything changed. I came home alone, went to sleep, and woke up in the middle of the night in a completely different version of my life.
For the next three weeks, I can wake up at 2 a.m. I can go to sleep whenever I want. I can work, dance, exercise, write, travel somewhere, or spend the whole night riding my bike through Warsaw. I do not have to fit into anyone else’s schedule.
It is freedom, but the transition into it is not easy.
Two different lives
I had a great three weeks with my daughters. Now I can also have a great three weeks without them.
Writing this feels slightly uncomfortable because it may sound as if one life replaces the other or as if I am happy that they are gone. That is not what I mean. These are simply two completely different parts of my life. I appreciate the time when they are here, and I can also appreciate the time when I am alone.
One does not have to make the other less important.
When my daughters are with me, I am a father living inside a shared rhythm. When they leave, I return to this strange, open life I have built for myself – dancing, blogging, exercising, moving through Warsaw, working at unusual hours, and following ideas that sometimes appear in the middle of the night.
Neither version feels complete without the other. But moving between them still hurts a little.
This morning, however, the sadness is mixed with something else. I feel deeply grateful. Not only for the weeks I have just had or for the weeks ahead, but for the whole strange path that brought me here.
The life I did not plan
Years ago, I had a wife, children, cigarettes, debts, and something that looked much more like a typical life. I do not mean that it was a bad life. It was simply a life that followed a more recognisable shape.
Now my life is much weirder.
I live in a tiny house in Warsaw that many people probably would not understand, but I love it. I have my own dancing room. I started learning to dance at an age when most people would probably decide it was already too late. I run my business, write a blog in English, and keep thinking about podcasts, videos, travelling, and perhaps one day buying a piece of land somewhere by the sea or in the mountains.
I sometimes look at all of this and wonder how I arrived here.
The easiest answer would be to find one important moment: quitting smoking, starting a journal, moving out, getting divorced, beginning to dance, rebuilding my finances, or starting to write publicly.
But there was no single decision that created this morning.
It was all of them.
The good decisions brought me here, but the bad ones did too. The things I am proud of and the things I wish I had done differently are part of the same path. Without some of my mistakes, I would not have needed to change. Without fear, perhaps I would never have learned that I could still act while being afraid.
Of course, I sometimes wish I had become wiser earlier. I wish I had understood certain things ten or twenty years ago. But I did not. I understood them when I was ready, or when life finally forced me to look at them.
I cannot remove the bad decisions without also removing the person who woke up today.
Freedom can also become pressure
It is now around 4:00 in the morning. I am sitting with my coffee, writing, and enjoying this strange space between night and morning.
I still do not know what I will do with today, let alone with the next three weeks.
I could work on my blog or one of my websites. I could develop the journal app catalogue I have been thinking about, go to more dance classes, start recording something, travel somewhere for a few days, or take my bike and spend the day moving through Warsaw.
There are so many possibilities, and I love that.
But possibilities can quickly become another kind of pressure.
When there are ten things I could begin, I immediately start thinking that I should begin all of them. A free morning becomes a blog strategy, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a journey, a training plan, and a complete redesign of my life.
I know this feeling very well. I become excited, start too much, and then discover that my freedom has turned into a list of obligations I created for myself.
Perhaps I do not have to decide what these three weeks will become at 4:00 on their first morning.
Perhaps I only need to begin them.
A good life can still have something missing
I am grateful for my life, but gratitude does not mean pretending that everything is perfect.
There is still a quiet desire in me to share more of life with someone. Not in a dramatic or heavy way, just as a simple human wish. At the same time, I also see how unusual my life is, how much it changes, and how many things I still want to build and explore. I do not fully know how all of that would fit together with another person, or whether it would.
So most of the time I simply continue living and let that question stay open.
Maybe one day something will happen. Maybe not.
This does not take away from what is already good. It only reminds me that a good life can still feel unfinished. I can appreciate what I have and still want something more.
Both things can be true.
Beginning with one small decision
For years, I have been making decisions to improve my life. Some of them were large and obvious. Others seemed small, but slowly changed everything.
I think I am addicted to improving my life, although not in the sense of forcing it into some perfect system. I simply love changing small things and watching how they slowly change everything else.
Maybe this morning will become one of those small decisions.
Until now, I have often started my days by listening to a podcast or music. Someone else’s voice entered my head before I had listened to my own. Today, I started with silence, coffee, and writing.
Perhaps this is what I want to do now: begin my mornings with my journal, a blog post, or even a recording of whatever is in my mind. Not because I need another strict habit, but because writing helps me notice the life I am already living.
I do not know whether this will last. I have tried many things before. Some stayed, others disappeared after a few days. This may be another attempt.
But my life was built from attempts.
Quitting smoking, journaling, dancing, and building a different kind of life all began as uncertain attempts. Some eventually became permanent parts of me.
So I do not need to plan all three weeks tonight. I do not need to decide whether I will launch a podcast, travel somewhere, rebuild my websites, or spend more nights dancing in Warsaw.
For now, I am sitting in my small house, drinking coffee and writing.
I had a beautiful three weeks with my daughters. Now another three weeks are beginning. They will be different, and I want to let them be different.
I feel sadness, freedom, appreciation, and excitement at the same time.
And instead of trying to turn all these possibilities into a new life before sunrise, I am beginning with one small thing.
This post.