Today, I did the unthinkable. I mixed it up. I broke the rhythm, cracked the routine, gave the rulebook a slightly suspicious side-eye and yes, I ate a chicken salad sandwich before drinking my coffee.

I know. Who am I?

Let’s start with the chicken salad situation. I’ve had a long-standing, possibly irrational, but firmly rooted fear of chicken salad. Blame the texture. Blame the dubious mayo-to-poultry ratio. Blame a lifetime of food safety PSAs and one traumatic potluck in 2002. Whatever it is, I usually avoid chicken salad like it owes me money.

But today? I saw it sitting there, innocent, creamy, overly confident. I took a breath. Said a quick prayer to the gods of refrigeration, and bit in. And dare I say it? It was… good. Zesty, even. A little crunchy. No regrets (yet, though I have kept a mental inventory of symptoms, just in case I’m writing this from a food-poisoning prequel).

Then there was the sun. Normally, I’m a shade-seeker. A vampire-lite. Too much sun and I get a headache the size of Manhattan real estate prices. But today, I laid myself out like a lizard on a rock. Just me, the sun, and a tiny internal voice whispering, “this is how people get migraines, you know.” And yet, it felt glorious. Not scorching. Not punishing. Just… warming the bones, softening the edges.

And here’s the real kicker: I did all this before my coffee. I know. Blasphemy. Coffee is my morning anchor, my ritual, my reason for pretending I’m functional before 10 a.m. But today, I gave myself a little cushion of time before the caffeine. I let my brain drift in that uncaffeinated fog, my neurons yawning, my thoughts unpolished. It was weirdly… restful.

Maybe that’s the point of a day off. To surprise yourself gently. To eat the chicken salad, risk the sun headache, and delay the one thing you swear you can’t live without. To test your own self-imposed borders.

And honestly? I kind of loved it.

Tomorrow, I might go back to my usual neuroses and predictable patterns. But today, I dipped a toe into the “other side” of my habits. And lived to tell the tale.

(Still watching for signs of salmonella. But with a suntanned glow.)