Freedom

I'm off from work for a few days, and it's nice. I have errands to run and appointments to keep and calls to make and things to do, but I'll have some down time, too.

This morning, I woke up at 7:30, a time that my teenage sons would consider hideously and cruelly early for a day off but that constitutes sleeping in for me. I made coffee and checked my messages and emails and social media feeds, and then got ready to take a shower.

There is the first hint of the point that I will eventually get to with this little post that is going to be a hot mess, so don't say that you weren't warned. What does it mean to "get ready" to take a shower? Why does readiness or preparation of any sort even enter into this little equation? Taking a shower is in itself a readiness operation, but not a thing for which you need to get ready, right? 

Well, you're not me, now are you? Because when you're me, you plan your day around your to-do list and your compulsive household routine, and you look at the clock and you think "OK, it's a minute after 8. I wonder if I can fold the laundry, chop the vegetables for dinner, and wipe down the refrigerator shelves before 8:30?" And of course, being you, you can do that on your head; and by the time you’re done, it's only 8:28. So then you think "Hmm. I could also start the next load of laundry, clean the hall bathroom, and pack up this package that I have to ship, and I bet I can do all of that by 8:45." And guess what? You totally can. I totally can. 

At 8:45, I thought about going one more round. “9:15,” I thought. “By 9:15, I bet I can…” and then I stopped, First of all, because there was literally nothing left to do, housekeeping-wise. The house was clean and the laundry was caught up and the evening meal was prepped and ready to cook. And secondly because for crying out loud. At some point, it’s time to stop getting ready to start my day, and to just start my day. I took a shower and had a second cup of coffee, and I took my son to his eye doctor’s appointment. I wrote the first few paragraphs of this on my phone as I sat in a socially distanced waiting room chair. My son’s eyesight is 20-20. We left the eye doctor and we got some lunch, and I went on my way rejoicing. 

*****

Things are always proliferating and multiplying and taking over. If it’s not tasks and chores, then it’s stuff. Case in point: my husband gave me a wallet for Christmas. It’s a really nice suburban middle-aged lady Coach wallet, the full-size kind that zips all the way around, in a very light color that I would never choose for myself. I would never have chosen this wallet style period. But oddly, I really like it. It’s very nicely made; it feels smooth and elegant and substantial in my hand, and it easily fits everything I need to carry in a wallet. But it’s also kind of big, and a little bit heavier than I like. 

I carry far too much stuff, as you might know. This is a frequent topic of this blog and of the thoughts in my head. Stuff multiplies and proliferates, and it’s all I can do to keep it under control. I don’t hoard things; in fact, I’m often too quick to purge things and then wish that I still had them. But right now, I’m not talking about stuff in general. I’m talking about the stuff that I haul around with me, literally, because I like to be prepared. My bag is too heavy, and I want to lighten it, flatten it out a little bit. I probably still need to carry hand sanitizer or hand wipes or alcohol prep pads. But all three? Maybe not. I like to have a rosary with me, but do I need to have two? (In my defense, I didn’t realize that I was carrying two.) No, I don’t. One will suffice. Same thing for pens. 

I don’t need to carry a notebook with me. I use my phone to write if an idea strikes me, and there’s always a random scrap of paper in the giant wallet if I truly need to write something. I don’t need to carry a little card case for business cards, because they too will fit in the wallet. And a flashlight? No. I do not need to carry a flashlight. The phone will fill in as a flashlight, too. 

So the bag contains fewer things now, and it feels lighter, but I still have pretty much everything that I’m likely to need. I still have safety pins and cash. I still have Rescue Remedy and hand lotion and band-aids. I still have a stupid stupid COVID mask. I’m ready for just about anything. 

*****

My handbag weighs less now, and it looks better, too. I don’t like the look of a thing that’s overstuffed, full to capacity. Now that the bag is manageable, I find that I want to lighten the rest of the load, too. The handbag is just a start. There’s a lot of other clutter that I need to get rid of, and it’s mostly in my brain. 

Here’s what I want to do. I want to get up in the morning and just go, rather than trying to figure out how many chores I can complete before I allow myself to leave the house. I want to throw on whatever clothes are handy and weather-appropriate, without planning for every single possible eventuality that could arise throughout the day. I want to extricate myself from captivity to routines and lists and tasks. I want to get ready, without getting ready to get ready. I want to be free. 

That’s a lot to fix, a lot of mental clutter to clear out of an overstuffed brain. Sometimes I think they wrote whole sections of the DSM-IV with me in mind. Sometimes I think I should see a counselor or something, but we all know that that’s not going to happen. I can barely get myself to see a physician when there’s something actually wrong with my body, so there’s very little chance that I’ll ask for professional help with my compulsions and neuroses. But I did clean out my handbag, and that’s a start. A person has to start somewhere.