Musings

I forgot an appointment today.

I have a planner I check religiously, but obviously I didn’t check it this morning, on this second snow day that felt a little like a dream when I saw the sun outside. I sat on the couch, doing Wordle and other NYT games that make me feel like I’m waking up my brain instead of putting it to sleep. Dylan woke up and came to the couch instead of immediately hitting video games, and we watched the new Percy Jackson episode, talked about how it’s so much better than the movie, how I need to watch the first five episodes before finishing in the upcoming weeks. I ran on the treadmill (ok, ran and walked and ran and walked) and felt generally productive after writing about under productivity yesterday.

Then my phone rang. I saw the number. I looked at the time, and I remembered, thirty minutes past the time we should have walked into their door, let alone the forty-five minutes past when we should have walked out of ours. They rescheduled without an issue, and I apologized over and over before I hung up, and I feel like a failure.

I made taco meat, because I work at the dance studio tonight and am not home to eat dinner, let alone make it. I made turkey meat for the guys and Impossible “meat” for us — two skillets, two spatulas, double the cleanup, but I used the premade taco seasoning. And did you know it has preservatives, and you can make your own that tastes better and is healthier, and I feel like a failure.

I would never let one of my friends engage in the failure dialogue for these small things — a forgotten appointment, using a convenient shortcut to make dinner — or for the bigger things, to be honest. I know my friends, and I know they’re all worrying and trying and worrying and probably overthinking, and I would want them to know those little things don’t equate to failure or subpar motherhood or any of the things I’m feeling right now.

I know this, solidly, in my head, where logic should rule. In my gut, though, I feel like a failure. Everyone forgets; I know this, but I’m still turning it over and over in my head and wishing I wouldn’t have forgotten.

If you’ve read any of my posts (or talked to me) in the weeks leading up to the beginning of school, you’ve read that I look forward to the waning of summer, the return to the routine of our (sometimes busy) lives. We’ve almost returned, though A’s dance classes don’t start until this Monday, but we haven’t returned all the way.

Or we have, but my energy sure hasn’t.

What I forget about the beginning of the academic year is the sheer level of exhaustion that accompanies it after the first bursts of new! shiny! fun! adrenaline fade into the ether. What remains are tired eyes and a woman who doesn’t want to make dinner, though I try to make dinner, even if it’s simple like quiche or tacos or pasta. This isn’t a new sort of tired; I experience it each year, though I obviously let my brain smooth over it, like the hard memories of waking up with a newborn every thirty minutes.

I love the routine.

That part isn’t an illusion. I do better when there are things structuring the day, blocks of time that I don’t necessarily build: school hours and work hours, classes and games, occasional dinners with friends.

The part that requires adjusting involves the extra early wake-ups. (Ask me how many workouts I’ve done since school started. Surprising no one except me: not many.) It involves the number of people I interact with on a daily basis. I still feel more like an extrovert than some of the people in my house, but I get my best extrovert energy from people I choose to see, and working in a public-facing job means…well, not everyone I interact with brings energy into my life. Some of them suck it straight through their teeth.

We skipped a home football game this week (not the one of us that actually goes to the high school involved), which I didn’t expect to do. I like the energy of football Fridays: the band and the cheerleaders, and in a few weeks I’ll like the scalding hot chocolate they sell at the concession stand. This Friday, though, I sat at home with a bowl of ice cream and possibly a little nap.

I’ll adjust, hopefully in time to enjoy the shifting of summer weather into fall, though I’m also wondering if this is the year I finally try the light lamp I think about each winter. I’ll embrace the early alarm, the quiet workout before the rest of the house awakes, folding laundry while it’s warm, because I know I won’t have time in the morning. I’ll adjust and settle into routine, until it’s time to look forward to a vacation, and then the cycle begins all over again.

I skipped my writing time yesterday for no reason at all. I felt tired, and the heat felt oppressive (still no fix for the air conditioner), but more than anything, I didn’t have much to say. I still don’t today. We are in the lull between summer fun and fall routine, and I can’t manage to get productive. It feels like I should just wait until I’m back into the swing of fall, though I know that’s not likely to be for another month, by the time things truly settle.

I read something yesterday, a poem about the body and the push and pull between the heart and the head. The need to settle in with your lungs instead, to be present with your breath. I don’t remember where I saw it, or I would link to it. When I read it, I paused, but I’m still thinking about it a day later. I need to get better with that, to understand that sometimes just being present is all the productivity I need. Not every day needs to be a productivity marathon.

I guess I don’t have all that much to say today, either.

I’ve been doing my best to craft some healthier routines before the school year starts, something I’ve rambled on about here several times this month. Today, though, my day got thrown off by a lot. A doctor’s appointment for my mom turned into a little emergency (are there any little emergencies?) and we ended up with an hours-long outlook on the day instead of only a short blood draw.

Normally, I wouldn’t think too much about the change in plans. Thankfully, the rest of my afternoon was clear, and Ryan could take care of the only thing the kids needed. I would be lying if I said it didn’t throw me for a “new, healthier routines” loop. I hadn’t brought a water bottle, though I had plenty of coffee, and I hadn’t worked out in the morning before I left the house. I had a book but nothing for writing, and I know by now that my Notes app is basically where my thoughts go to never be looked at again.

When I finally went home for a quick bite to eat, it wasn’t nearly as healthy as my choices have been the rest of the week. I wanted to take a nap instead of working on anything on my to-do list, but I turned to this little post instead, a kind of compromise of sorts. (No fiction prompt but at least some writing time in an otherwise chaotic day.)

In the overreaching arc of life, today is the least of my issues in terms of lack of productivity or solidifying routines, but it was a reminder of how hard it can be to balance flexibility and stability. Strong routines matter, because the little things we do each day add up — I truly believe that. More water is better than hydrating with coffee and diet coke. 10,000 steps is better than daily Gossip Girl marathons. Fruit and vegetables are better than copious amounts of cheese cubes.

Yet without flexibility, those routines can never become, well, routine.

I have to remember that I’m working to do these things as a cumulative effect, not just a quick fix. It’s hard to think of it like that when the beginning of the week went according to plan and this day just didn’t, even though there wasn’t much on my agenda. As the school year begins, pivoting becomes so much more of a part of daily life, and the ability to slide back into those planned routines will be crucial to keeping them moving forward.

Tomorrow, I will worry about my step count again, and I’ll try not to feel guilty about the missing checkboxes on a list no one looks at but me.