waiting waiting waiting
and the trouble with routines
There are five robins in one tree, all stepping side to side, ruffling their feathers against the freezing air, waiting patiently for the first rays of sun.
I have decided that I’ll open the window just a crack, that way I can smell the earth while I sit at my desk, crossing and uncrossing my legs, and hovering my fingers just above the keyboard, waiting.
Waiting for what? I’m not sure, and so I change my mind and go for a walk, watching my feet take step after step. I follow the usual path. The one that winds between and behind the houses with their long wooden fences. The one that takes me by the window with the two round dogs that bark and bark, eventually flopping back down onto their shared bed, exhausted from all the protecting.
I hesitate before making a left into a narrow alley. The one that I know will lead me back to the route that I am most familiar with; three steps in and the houses curl over me as a garage door opens and I wave and smile and carry on toward the cat that sits in the shadows. Also waiting. I pause to say hello, it does not care, and I do not take it personally.
When I round the corner, I am greeted by the familiar neighborhood library, and I notice, for what feels like the first time, that the rocks just below the small, house-shaped structure, are all painted in cheery colors; yellow smiley faces and blue stick figure families peer up at me, while I peer down at the odd collection of children’s books.
Now that I’m home, I stand in the kitchen and squeeze honey into my mouth, holding it on my tongue and marveling at how warm and sweet it tastes against the backdrop of Winter.
Last week, I deleted an entire piece I wrote about how I haven’t been sleeping well. Which is true, I haven’t, but I also decided that the piece I wrote was more for me than anyone else, and that talking about my sleep being poor, wasn’t going to help make my sleep any better. And so, I deleted it. Then, I wrote about my mood changing in a very literal way, and deleted that, because again, it was more for me than anyone else.
So much of what we do in our day-to-day, is neither seen nor validated by anyone but ourselves, and when life picks up pace, or things are thrown off course, the first things to go are often the quiet moments in our routine—the things that keep us tethered to reality, and to ourselves.
In general, being home makes it much easier to implement routine and structure into my days. Walks, gentle movement, making tea, reading, meditating, journaling, taking my medication, showing up for therapy, tidying my workspace before I sit down to write, and so on, all become foundational aspects of my day, and are pivotal in helping me to find stability within an ever-changing mood. But sometimes, I forget that I can be safe outside of them, too. That when I am away from home or traveling or have guests, I can get curious about which aspects of my routine could be modified, so that they can better fit into the messiness and unpredictability of the current moment.
The room I’m in is growing darker and darker, and I’m now thinking about how I’m afraid of losing control. Of slipping back into my old, reactionary ways. Of falling away from my routines and feeling unsafe in myself. Of not being able to say no when I mean yes and yes when I mean no and no longer moving in and out of conversations with ease.
I nod with impatience: yes yes, it’s all so very complicated being a human with emotions and moods that never fit in the spaces you’d like them to. And that yes, maybe you aren’t doing enough, and maybe you’d like to do more, but if you can just start by being enough for yourself and for those around you, that that might be ok, too? For now, anyway.
I’ve gotten up to turn the heater on, pressing my body as close to it as I can (without being burned), and settle into a new idea: go for walks when you are able, journal when it feels supportive, create lists when you need those extra reminders, meditate if it sounds helpful, go to therapy when it’s available to you, move your body if it feels accessible, and so on. And when you go somewhere or life begins to spiral, don’t worry about trying to do it all, all at once, because sometimes doing it all isn’t possible, and that’s ok. You’re still safe somewhere in between.
So, we make more tea and cram our bodies against the heater and tell ourselves that we will wait and wait and wait until we stop waiting and begin the thing we’ve told ourselves isn’t safe to do, all because maybe we’ll get it wrong and fall a part and make a total mess of things…
But there it is, it’s just over there, close enough to grab ahold of. To learn to trust, slowly. To try and make sense of, slowly. To begin again, slowly, and then to shape it into something of our own, with everything we’ve got.
With love,
Chloe
Epilogue.
It’s probably because it took me so many years to find a routine that helps me to feel safe and stable and myself, that I am so attached to each and every piece of it.
In truth, I never paid much attention to the importance of routines before my diagnosis. I was too busy doing and doing and moving and moving. Which, I understand, because sometimes we are too busy or too sad or too stressed to ask ourselves anything other than: what do you need right now?
And instead, we do the best we can with what we have and that is a good enough place to start—it has to be, otherwise, we would feel paralyzed by our not-enough-ness, and not do anything at all.
Lastly, I am going to be a guest teacher for The Sanctuary this Saturday (February 10, at 11am PST), and will be teaching a workshop on list-making. If you’d like to find out more, head here.
(naturally, I’m very excited! and very nervous! and can’t believe It’s really happening!)
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