Tag Archives: schedule

Canva Witsanu Patipatamak
motherhood, Survival

Exposed

I’m always late.

Not because I’m an asshole.

But my best intentions to leave and arrive in a timely fashion just never seem to progress as intended.

Sometimes a progression of stuff that you just can’t make up stacks up and against and over each other and makes for a royal shit show.

As I breathlessly explained to my daughter’s Girl Scout leader why we were late to one activity last year, “it’s been one of those days”.

She said, “I feel like that’s everyday for you.”

I felt my face stiffen. It often betrays that initial ego reaction you’d usually like to keep under wraps.

She said it with a warm smile and a laugh. She did not mean it as a dig.

My face was more my own sober realization that, while our life may not be, very often our logistics are a shit show.

I do often rush into a room, feeling (and quite possibly sweating) as if I’ve just run a marathon. More pressing than my pulse is the urge to explain. If that old woman with the disapprovingly dipped eyelids knew the gauntlet we’d just run to get here, she’d be impressed we were only x minutes late.

There was the teen who refused to get out of bed. The kid who hid the hairbrush. The one who needed help with socks.

A forgotten book.

You didn’t get my coat?

Shut up

Stop it

I don’t know what to wear

We’re leaving in five minutes?

And that’s when we’re all headed to the same place.

Forget multiple work schedules, sport schedules, driving abilities and available cars.

And compliance is always on a sliding scale with six bars.

I have always been such a good control freak. A logistics queen. Responsible. Trustworthy. With follow-through like we the people. I was never the harried hot mess mom with a shoe full of kids.

Now it seems like everyday is one of those days.

As I said, this woman had not remarked in judgement. And I should not be concerned with the opinions of others. And we do deal with a lot on a daily basis.

I guess I just didn’t want my struggle to be so public.

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anxiety, Identity, Living

Desperately Seeking a Daytimer

Second rewarm of my tea this morning.  Second start to holiday vacation for my kids thanks to a snowstorm.  Second application of warm socks and boots for the youngest who managed to lose her left one in a fall.

Final and total, complete agitation.

I rose to the insistent plying of my youngest to make her ‘brefkast’.  A detour into her sister’s room to find her playing on her iPad kept her there and left me alone with my laptop.  Instead of writing the three posts I should be or researching and revising the short story I should be, I putted around with email, online statuses, and reading blogs and comments other people had written.

I’m about as mushy as this 4-8 inches of snow will be once the temperature soars to a balmy 48 degrees on Monday.

How many pains in the asses do we have to feel before we become a cranky ass?

I’ve gone too long without a routine, this I know.  The four to five days following Christmas where we ambled out for a hike once we actually got dressed, ate whenever we wanted, and cuddled in actual or electronic firelight were divine.  I sorely needed them.  But one day of waking early, rushing to the bus stop, running errands, etc. etc, etc, and then back to that loosey-goosey schedule was not enough.  As much as I hate working to a clock, leaving me to structure my own days is a little like playing with that actual fire.

Plus, as excited as I am about some new ventures coming down the pike, they’re new and therefore anxiety-inducing.  Will I succeed?  Will I have enough time to complete my new tasks in addition to my existing ones?  Will I be able to create enough quality content for three blogs? (Rob and Ruby, if you’re reading . . . of course, I can! 😉 ) Perfectionism is the enemy, but if I’m putting my name to it, it best be good.  Nothing like self-induced panic and pressure.

We’re in that in-between state where the merriment of the holidays is no more, but it’s unclear what this new year will be.  Unknown strikes fear into the heart of the fear-a-phobe.

Which I suppose is why I sorely need a schedule.  One trivial, nitpicky way to get some tiny semblance of control over the whirling dervish that is now – my thoughts, my responsibilities, my needs, my children, my irrational, unfounded worries.  That should be one hell of a calendar.

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