Lest you think I have it all together, here’s a description of the first 30 minutes of my morning.
I should first note it was the first day back to school for both my eldest and my teacher husband following the holiday break, and none of us were exactly looking forward to it after a few weeks of enjoying our own schedule.
- The baby woke to eat before my alarm went off. I wrestled him back to sleep, then woke the cranky school child.
- As I packed a lunch, the middle child woke up, screaming.
- The screaming woke the baby.
- The husband used the last of the milk, which didn’t make the cereal-loving screamer any happier.
- The school people rushed off to school, leaving the packed lunch on the bar.
- The meat for the sandwich I was making was still in the microwave anyway.
- The baby immediately had not one, but two diaper blowouts requiring two outfit changes.
- The 53,000 unread emails in my account rendered it too full to operate.
- I checked my bank account, only to learn an automatic payment was processed twice by the company, over drafting my account for just the second time in my life.
- I started the washing machine – again, as I started the same load yesterday and then forgot it – only to find the one box of non-liquid detergent I own had fallen from the shelf and coated the floor.
All of this happened before daylight.
None of this is earth-shattering or even really anything that will set the tone of my day. I’m fine, I’ve laughed it all off, and forward I will march.
But as a new year begins and we inevitably take assessment of our lives and set goals, my chaotic morning reminds me I know one thing about myself: I will flounder.
I will have noble aspirations and idealized plots, and they will often fail. I will try to be poised, and I will be a klutz instead. I will start with a clean slate only to quickly muddle it. I will vow to be early and I will be late, every single time, because I’ve finally accepted it is who I am (and not because I’m some jerk who values my time over the time of others – I hate that assessment – but because I try to cram too much into a pocket of time and don’t realize it until it’s too late). Much of what I will try to change will be out of my control anyway.
So while I make my to-do list for the day and my goals list for the year, I’ll still set my sights high. But when things inevitably don’t go as planned, I’ll give myself grace and forge along as I learn from my mistakes.
And then someday, maybe I’ll have an empty inbox and a full bank account.
(Probably not, but it’s worth a try).