I built a desk at 1am and I don’t regret it
There are weekends that just take it out of you.
This was one of them.
We were short-staffed. It was the weekend before my annual leave, which meant there was this weight sitting on everything I did. I told myself I’d stay focused, get what I needed to get done, and leave the rest. I know that version of myself is possible. I’ve seen her.
But I ended up doing what I always do. Getting pulled into the job itself. Helping the team. Absorbing whatever needed absorbing.
It’s just who I am. And mostly I’m at peace with that. But it does come with a cost.
By Sunday I was completely flat. Everything started stacking at once, and then the IT went wrong on top of it all, and that was it. I cried. Not in a dramatic way. Just that kind of crying where your body finally gets a word in edgeways. Pure frustration. The kind that builds up quietly over two days until one more thing lands and your system just goes nope.
Anyway.
Somewhere in the middle of that same weekend, I’d been watching TikTok and seen this IKEA desk setup. Two kitchen countertops, two ALEX drawer units, legs underneath. People were building these beautiful little setups, calm and cosy and entirely their own. And the idea just got stuck in my head.
So at about 1am on Sunday night, I started building it.
I did it in an L-shape. Added legs. And I did not stop until after 4am.
Looking back, I can name exactly what that was. The hyperfocus switch flipped. Proper ADHD fixation energy. No sense of time, no off button, just completely locked in until it was finished. I was absolutely wrecked the next day. Like, properly wrecked.
But I was also really glad I did it.
There’s something about making a space that feels like yours. Something about putting your hands to something and ending up with a physical thing that didn’t exist before. It’s quiet and calm and it makes you want to just sit in it for a minute without anything pulling at you.
It didn’t fix the weekend. It didn’t undo any of it.
But it gave me a small win in the middle of a stretch that didn’t have many. And right now, that feels like it counts.
