I’m struggling with routine at the moment. “At the moment” is an ironic choice of words considering my current embattled relationship with routine, as a concept, is hardly new; rather, it exists as a continuation of a war that has been waging for years.
However, much like some of you I’m sure, I came into 2024 wanting to embrace a new routine for myself. This year, in particular, I’m seeking a routine for the sense of normalcy that it will provide. At least, I am postulating that routine will instill some feeling of control in my life1. This elusive sense of normalcy, though, remains a postulation and not a law because I have not had a solid routine since high school. In high school, I would wake up, arrive to school much too late (no, seriously, I think I was late to my first period class about half the time my senior year, if not more), go through my day, and then, pretty reliably, have theater rehearsal for two hours after school. After rehearsal, I would drive home, start my homework, eat dinner with my family, return to my homework, and then go to bed much too late, causing me to leave for school much too late the next day and do it all again! That was the basic daily routine, but then I also had weekly routines like choir practice on Tuesday nights and voice lessons on Thursdays at 9:30 PM. Sure, there would be the occasional surprise to spice up the calendar but, for the most part, I knew what to expect from each week.
Then, I went to college, where my routines went to die. On a relatedly-unrelated note, I find it absolutely fascinating how I spent a majority of my most formative years going to school from, give or take, eight in the morning to three in the afternoon just to leave secondary education and have the proverbial training wheels ripped off of the bike that is my life, but I digress. While I could have, theoretically, scheduled my classes in a more structured way, I remember my college schedule, especially my first semester, feeling alien after all my years of primary and secondary education. Classes met at disparate times and only on certain days; plus, there’s so much more free time than I had grown accustomed to in my prior schooling. For instance, I remember my first class on Mondays and Wednesdays did not start until two PM. Then, after finishing that class at two-fifty, I was done for the day. In spite of these drastic changes, however, I did quite well with that part of the transition to college. I got involved in college theater, I went to the gym very consistently, and started my yoga practice, all of which gave me a bit more structure in my days.
Then, of course, right as I was getting in a groove, there was the pandemic. If you don’t remember, for about a year, everything about life felt very not normal. After five months in Pittsburgh, I was suddenly right back in Hockessin where I started. I kept attending classes virtually, exercised a lot, and fixated on music or Animal Crossing or Minecraft to help me cope with a world that felt like it was imploding around me.
Eventually, though, my life started to feel somewhat normal again. Classes started to meet in person, theatrical productions could have live audiences, and I even managed to finish my degree. After I graduated, though, perhaps because I was feeling more familiar with a life that felt random, I decided to take a year of my life to bop around the four corners of the Earth. This choice was, among many other dimensions, not at all conducive to having some kind of routine or sense of stability or illusion of control, or whatever it is I hope to achieve by having a consistent routine.
Therefore, the past five years of my life, or the interim between now and the last time I had a steady and prolonged routine, have felt quite different from one another. Put another way, I’ve found myself in a completely different position than the one I had been in the year before. While I ultimately feel really grateful for and content with the past five years, I’m not sure whether this amount of year over year change is normal. It would follow, though, that having an understanding of how inconsistent certain aspects of my life have felt would dissuade me from forming any kind of routine. What’s the point in trying to create consistency in a life that feels like it's constantly changing? However, especially as someone who is starting a new chapter in a setting that feels more permanent, I do want to develop a more consistent routine. A constellation of habits that I can credit, in some small way, with getting me into whatever position I find myself in at this time next year.
Well, dear reader, let’s just say it has not worked out well. Going into this year, one of my goals for my routine is to wake up at seven AM every weekday. However, I have this really comfy bed wherein, most mornings, I wake up snug as a bug in a rug. It also doesn’t help that I use the snooze button as if I’m not a productive member of society with a job and other obligations. Additionally, there are nights, like this one, for instance, where I stay up late trying to meet a self-imposed deadline and, therefore, have to sleep later into the morning if I want to not feel like shit the next day. All of these factors come together to put me behind where I want to be most mornings. While I am proud of some of the habits I’ve formed and prioritized this year, such as going to the gym regularly and practicing yoga with Adriene and Benji, other habits, namely my writing practice, have been sidelined.
Neglecting my writing practice is particularly problematic considering my goal to, once again, make this a weekly newsletter. It also doesn’t bode well for the manuscript I’ve been working on (c’mon reveal!) that is already about 12,000 words long. Now, writing can go somewhere else in my day, but by the time I work a shift and feed myself afterwards, mustering the energy to show up on the page can present quite the challenge. Plus, while I love my creativity and it fills me with divine vitality and yada, yada, yada, I also want to do other activities than write in the ivory tower that is my apartment and go to work. I mean, if I wanted to stay inside and write all day, I could find a bigger place for much less money somewhere else.
I suppose therein lies another reason I crave routine: I want to feel like I’m balancing everything I want to do. Knowing myself, though, it is probably the case that I want to do a bit too much. So, perhaps routine exists as a sort of spawn of or henchman to expectation, a force with whom I’m engaged in a near-constant beef.
However, if I am trying really hard to establish a routine just to, ultimately, not do it how I want and, thus, disappoint myself, then why do I keep doing it? If I’m finding this much resistance, what’s the point?
The endless source of wisdom that she is, my mother actually provided me with an answer earlier. In a very nice text she sent me today, she wrote, “everyone has days of self doubt and I have a choice to beat myself down or trust I do my best.” I have not yet given up on my goal because I believe in it. I believe that I can be disciplined enough to wake up early so that I can do my pages, get in a Spanish lesson, exercise, and write before I have to go to work. I’m also confident that, once I find some sense of consistency, I can then assess how, if at all, the routine is helping me to balance all of my different interests. Finally, once I have a gauge of the balance that routine may or may not provide, I can adjust accordingly. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m doing my best, and I’m choosing to let that count for something.
So, dear reader, are you a person who enjoys routine? Or, do you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants? Did you, like me, get sucked into the allure of using the new year to start a routine? Let me know, if you will. See you soon!
This week’s recommendations:
Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Sonego’s second round match at the Australian Open. Talk about a mother-off!
Drag Brunch with Zeta Jones and Jasmine Rice at The Spot… beware of that unlimited drink package, though, mama!
@leahcucina’s sausage and peppers recipe.
America’s Next Top Bottoms at Club Cumming.
The Traitors US, season two, episode four.
Nymphia Wind.
I know SZA taught us control doesn’t exist literally years ago but that doesn’t mean I listened!