according to the schedule, there’s no space for that

I do not have many minutes of unstructured “free” time in my current life schedule.

It is likely true that I actually have none.

This is the season in which I currently am living.

It’s a full season.  Not a busy season.

(Well, you know – it’s a busy one too.  So be it.)

I’ve reached the nearly half a decade mark and one thing I have learned is that seasons change.  Busy now does not mean busy always.  Full now does not mean full in the future.

If the Lord allows me to live long enough, I will have days ahead of me (and relatively soon, I might add) with wide stretches filled with freedom of choice and less items to do and less areas in which I am responsible for providing.

But that’s not where I am now.

From opening of my eyes to closing of them again, my hours are planned, my minutes are bursting at the seams.  I’m a decent multi-tasker and I get a special thrill when I can accomplish many things at the same time.  In the literature class that I teach I just discovered a new way to keep up with the novel we are discussing in class.  I listen to the novel on the Hoopla app – but that’s not unusual.  The new part is that I have started listening to it while I get dressed and fix my hair.  

The extra challenging part of this particular season is that if a particular item or event is not on the calendar, not in the plans – it becomes difficult to make happen.  Spontaneity is harder right now.  And, frankly, I am far more fond of spontaneity than I am of a rigid schedule.  I see the value in routine and I know our current homeschool and work schedules run upon that routine, but I’ll admit, it goes against my nature.  Exercise has been at an all time low on the priority list and that’s a problem.  My neck seems to stay in a permanent tight position and that’s not great.

There are nights that my sweetest secret dream would be to hear the words, “Ill take care of everything tonight.”  Spoken by some mysterious voice.  Usually a British one, because – well, why not.  And by “I’ll take care of everything” that mysterious voice would mean they would clean up the dinner dishes (from the meal they made) and start the dishwasher, make the rounds of locking all the doors, turning out the lights, answering the last round of questions about the next day from five beautiful and curious people who should mostly all be asleep but somehow aren’t exactly yet.  They would fix me a cup of hot peppermint tea and they would encourage me to sit on the couch and read just one more chapter of that novel while they offered me a foot massage and told me how pretty I looked and how efficient and funny and clever I was.

Unfortunately, there’s no place in the schedule for that conversation to take place, and what’s more, no place in the universe currently for that to be a true scenario.  

So tonight I’ll do what I do instead.

While the water is boiling for the peppermint tea I’ll check the dishwasher (turns out my handsome thirteen year old started it for me), lock all the doors (most of them were already locked by some conscientious kid), try some essential oils on the knots in my neck, then drink my hot tea and practice a little writing therapy into the great wide open right here.

(And if you feel like telling me that I’m pretty or efficient or clever or funny, I’ll pretend that you’re saying it with a British accent.)

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