The Jury Summons Was Always Going to Be in There

July twenty-eighth. There was a pile. I want to be honest about the pile before anything else, it had been on the kitchen table for approximately three weeks, migrating occasionally to the counter when I needed the table for something, and then back again, and I had been walking past it every morning with the specific confidence of someone who has decided that not dealing with something is a form of patience.

This is not patience. I know this. The pile knows this. Gerald, from his shelf above the stove, has been watching the pile with the same expression he uses for everything, which is no expression, because he is a plant, but still. Today I made coffee, sat down, and opened every single one. Bills, two things from my insurance company that turned out to be redundant copies of each other, a postcard-sized ad for a mattress store I have never visited, and one jury summons dated three weeks ago with a response deadline that required me to sit very still for a moment and then go to the website immediately.

The website says I can request a postponement. I have requested a postponement. The form was simple, which felt like the bureaucratic equivalent of someone patting my shoulder and saying it's fine, it's fine, it really isn't that urgent. I don't know if that's true but I'm choosing to believe it.

the specific face of reading something you really should have opened three weeks ago

The pile is gone now. I made a second mug of coffee as a reward, which is maybe not a reward system I would recommend scaling, but it worked this afternoon. The mail is sorted, the summons is handled, the table is clear, and Gerald has a second new leaf coming in that I noticed while I was standing there feeling pleased with myself. Small things. It was a good enough Tuesday.