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| Image credit: Photo by Daveybot on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
My son recently did something startling. He sat down in a different seat than usual. That may not seems startling, but for years, he has had the same place. And it's not just the same seat he enjoys, sameness in general comforts him: the same cup, the same spoon, the same bowl, the same foods, the same sequence at bedtime, the same toys and games, the same words over and over. So, change, when it comes takes me by surprise.
I like to pretend that I abhor routine myself. After all, it seems dull to get up and do the same thing day after day. I'm theoretically very spontaneous, and by extension, interesting. But only in theory. In reality, I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning and the same thing for lunch each day. Every now and then it changes, but once it does, that new item will remain fixed for months. I do the household chores in a particular order, regardless of what I feel is important or what needs to be done (and that's one of the reason the litter box suffers: I always leave if for last). I was thinking, as I read the comments on my last post, that I rarely write out physical lists. I do something much worse; I carry a constant checklist in my head (with "clean litter box," "bathe kids" and "homework" at the bottom, of course).
Today, I dropped my daughter off at school, came home and sat straight down to write, as I always do. Only I couldn't think of anything to write today. So, I told myself, "You don't have to do the writing now. Why don't you get up and do some of those other chores and errands and then come back to the writing. By then you'll surely have thought of something. And if you don't, then you don't even have to write at all. You can take a day away from the keyboard." And I found that I couldn't. The idea of trying to write after I clean up and have lunch instead of before?! That's horrifying! An abomination! I can't do that. What a crazy disruption of my day. The world might end or my mind might fracture.
So, once again I find that my notoriously inflexible, compulsive son doesn't get it from nowhere. Unlike him, I'm not ready to startle anyone by changing where I sit. But at least I found something to write about.
I like to pretend I'm spontaneous too. Though I am better than when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteThis is great, MPJ. It reminds me of the story "Joseph had a Little Overcoat."
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't read it, Joseph is a man who has an overcoat. Various things happen to it throughout the story, the result of which the overcoat gets cut down into something smaller. In the end of the story, Joseph has a button.
Then, he loses the button, but says he can tell the story about the overcoat.
The last line of the story is, "which proves that you can make something out of nothing."
Enjoy your day.
I am a routine person, too. For some things. Like eating the same breakfast every day and eating it at the keyboard as I write a post in the morning.
ReplyDeleteWoe to anyone around me when a favourite new song gets stuck in my brain, too. As I read this post of yours I was listening to Rascal Flatts sing Broken Road on youtube. I think that's the 20 time in two days that I've listened to it. Which makes me realize I could have made the bed or done some laundry in the time I listened to him sing. C'est la vie.
We are having a very abnormal few days here. A major traffic accident in the family (it even made the news) and all of us are just emotionally and physically drained to the bone. Watching a loved one suffer, even when you know that the pain is temporary and that they'll be well again soon, is hard and tiring. I'm wiped and yet somehow I'm still doing all the things today that I normally do--even though the entire last two days have been anything but normal. Is it some kind of psychological measure against shock that makes us do the daily routine even when we could get away with less? For today I am grateful for the little things that "take up time". You know that saying that goes "the devil finds/makes work for idle hands "? The devil here is worry and fear. "Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind killer". Etc. So right now I'm in a holding pattern of forcing normalcy on an abnormal day and I guess that could be construed as rigidity as well, but for right now it's working.
ReplyDeleteI am a routine lover myself, and I often wonder if that is good or bad for my sons on the spectrum. On the one hand, I can totally provide them with the stability they crave, I can understand their anxiety when a routine must change, and I never forget how important it is to foreshadow these little bumps in routine so they don't freak out.
ReplyDeleteBut guess what? We don't have a lot of bumps around here, because I often cling to the routines just as fiercely as they. This is one of those times that I have to admit that the wusband's unpredictable nature has its benefits. (But he's still a Turd.)
Funny - this is just what I was talking about yesterday. I always claim I am nothing like my mom, who for example insisted on cooking in bursts - weeks of wok, weeks of casserole, weeks of tofu. We went to the same restaurant for 2 years, now we actually switched - and will frequent this new place for the next couple of years, faithfully, I guess.
ReplyDeleteHere I am, nothing like my mom. Currently baking one of two bread types every 2-3 days. And eating and cooking in bursts, with a set routine. The only thing that is completely arbitrary is my timing - living on your own kind of defeats the purpose of sticking to a schedule.
But no worries. I think having a routine frees your mind for more important things.
You must have been so amazed to see him choose a new chair!
ReplyDeleteI like routine too, with spontaneity kept pretty minimal, but the one area in which I crave variation is diet.
Aw c'mon, try a different chair for once. Try it on a Saturday. You might like it! you never know!
ReplyDeleteI wonder why spontaneity is such a valued trait that we (well, I should just speak for myself), I, feel vaguely ashamed when I want to do things the same way (same route to the library, store, school). I'm reminded of my childhood dog, who had a network of paths in our backyard (one to the knot-hole in the fence where she could look out to see us play). Where did the idea come from that this is a sort of character flaw? And why does spontaneity seem to be valued and rewarded? It reminds me of the cult of thinness--how did it become second-nature in western culture to prize a certain body type?
ReplyDeleteI too find a kind of comfort in sameness, and some resistance to transitions that change my momentum. It manifests in a dislike of being interrupted in something I'm doing.
I suppose it's some sort of emotional homeostatic system of internal regulation. Some of us are more sensitive to its movements than others.
I've appreciated your comments on my blog. Thank you very much, MPJ