I'm certainly not the only one for whom this is true. But I put it out there because really, I spend precious minutes being utterly flabbergasted by the truth: I can't do all of the things I am being asked to do, and I can't figure out what to delete from the list.
Take, for example, my morning routine. My morning wish routine, as in, I wish it was my routine.
A few months ago, I decided that I needed to give myself a morning routine that would prepare me well for the day. You know, as opposed to dragging myself out of bed at the same time as the kids and needing to hit the ground running over gritty floors in bare feet and then not stopping the running until hitting my pillow many, many hours later.
So a few months ago, I came up with my dream morning. It goes like this:
- Get up around 5am.
- Ride the exercise bicycle OR walk the dog: 25-30 minutes
- Pray: 15 minutes
- Shower: 20 minutes
- Fold and put away 1 load of laundry: 10 minutes
- Quick clean the bathroom: 5 minutes
- Eat breakfast: 20 minutes
- Write: 30 minutes
That adds up to around 2-2.5 hours of stuff to do before starting the job of momming people and teaching people.
Crazy, right? Who does that, beside fictional characters and people with OCD?
Well, not me. For the past few months, it's been my plan to make this routine part of my daily life. And I haven't done it once. Not once. I do bits and pieces of it, jamming this or that into spare corners that pop up in my day. I realized the other day that I actually told someone that I clean my bathroom every day. I didn't mean to lie, I just forgot that no, I don't actually clean my bathroom every day, I plan to clean my bathroom every day. (We've just got the one bathroom, for all 7 of us, and making cleaning it a daily thing -- which at one point I was doing successfully -- saves me from that livin' in a frat house feelin'.)
So I haven't actually ever done that routine. But I keep writing it down on my daily to-do list, keep saying it's a good idea, keep hoping that magically, someday, I will begin.
I know it's a crazy list and I know that reasonable people will tell me to throw that plan out the window and come up with a simpler one. But the thing is, those things all need to get done. And the earlier in the day, the better. And without ball, ball, chain, ball and chain around to weigh me down. It's not easy, it's not pleasant, it's a little like climbing Everest without an oxygen tank, but it all needs to get done. I just have to face it: raising 5 kids isn't for wimps, and neither is that list.
So here it is, blog peeps. It's new month, and I'm giving it a try. Again. I need to realign my relationship with my life and start doing things I know (or think) will be good for me.
What's the worst thing that could happen? I could try it out for a week or two and decide that it really was a ridiculous plan that doesn't make a difference and doesn't make me feel better about anything at all...and then I can stop. But untested, that Morning Routine is simply mocking me, taunting me, blowing raspberries at my head.
So let's give it a whirl, shall we? And with that, I must go to bed, because as you can see from the above list, I must get up very early.
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1 comment:
you are brave my friend. but oh the solitude. may angels sing indeed.
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