Over the last almost two years, I've fallen in love with not having a set schedule.
Mom is a night owl, and she's been my whole have-to-show-up-in-person job.
She goes to bed between 2 and 4 a.m. She regularly gets up at noon.
She's ruined me for the real world.
I hear 6 am now, and I visibly wince.
For the record, it takes a good bit of discipline to live without a schedule.
Which sounds entirely counterintuitive.
But having something outside yourself that says, "You have to be here from this time to that time," gives you structure you can work around.
The problem with making your own appointments or scheduling activities is that when the appointment arrives, you still have to do it.
And, see, now most of the things on the schedule are want-tos, not have-tos.
I suck at want-tos.
I have spent an embarrassing amount of money on want-tos I only wanted in the moment and never used.
Me: I want to cleanse my lungs, liver, kidneys, bowels, or bloodstream; order the pill that does that! Take it for anywhere from a few days to a month (if I remember). Finally, get sick of looking at the wasted bottle taking up space, staring at me accusingly from the kitchen table, so put it in the bathroom cabinet under the sink.
Me: I want to lose weight; this ad really rang all my bells, so yeah, I'll spend the $19.99 for lifetime access... and never open the app again (Or like once after 22 months - looking at you, Mere!).
Me: I want to get in shape; let me start easy with this Tai Chi app for only 9 bucks for one month - BUT it's only $5 a month if you get three. Get three months! Discarded by day three - and that one I actually did for TWO WHOLE DAYS! IN A ROW EVEN!!
Practically a record!
Who am I kidding? No "practically" to it; it was a damn record.
So, yeah, it's not enough to schedule the stuff. It's not even enough to spend money on it (I really thought that would be a much bigger catalyst to action!). No, you have to, at the time it's scheduled, find enough of a give-a-damn to stick to your own scheduled activities.
And there's the kicker.
Because I'm at the age now where, even if it sounds like fun, and even if it sounds like fun in the moment I need it to be in order to go do the thing, I find myself thinking: is it worth the effort to do it?
I remember when things used to be easy to go do. In my early twenties, before I had kids.
20-year-old-me: I want to XYZ! Hmm, I can't today; I have to work. I'm off Tuesday! Tuesday comes: do XYZ.
EASY
Then I had kids, and doing the XYZ required a stroller, a diaper bag, and strapping squirmy passengers into their safety harnesses in their car seats while accommodating toy and drink and snack requests from the back seat, said with authority.
Now I'm dealing with my elderly mother. Swap the stroller for a walker; the diaper bag is now full of meds and tissues because when you retire, apparently the new currency is Kleenex, and instead of car seats, it's getting her to the car and into her seat and buckling her in, in the van that's now too tall for her to lift her feet that high without help, and getting her to slide her butt over onto the seat properly. Then accommodating her phone, and drink, and snack, and more Kleenex (seriously? Are you eating them while I'm not looking??) requests from the seat next to me, said with authority.
And honestly, Mom's even worse about the "Is it worth it?" question because, at 80, she's been asking it for 25 years now, and she's come to a firm decision: the answer is no.
It is not.
COVID changed the world, and its lasting after-effects are the death it wrought (I'm sorry for your losses!) and grocery delivery being revived from 100 years ago.
Huzzah for the return to grocery delivery!
I schedule the time window, set alarms, and everything, thanks to grocery delivery.
I mean, eating food is more of a have-to. And without having to leave the house, it's totally worth it.
So I have one thing, outside of in-person doctor's appointments for Mom, that I actually SCHEDULE and DO.
Literally everything else is a have-to, or it's not getting done - at least not with any reliability, you know, like, oh, IDK, on a schedule.
Is it possible to fire oneself if I piss myself off with my own lack of work ethic?
Asking for 'a friend'.
