(Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash)
It’s just so cute, really.
All the lists I make and the Post-it notes I positively live by—plastered to my bathroom mirror each night and stuck to the kitchen counter each morning, instructing me what to do and where to be and how many things I need not forget. And then there are the shinier, less scribbly goals I share publicly, all word count this and page number that.
“CUTE,” Life says, in response to my Enneagram 3 Type A planner ways. “Now, let’s make her squirm. This should be fun.”
The first quarter of the year is reliably my least favorite, and this one hasn’t strayed from that trend! Sickness abounded (endless colds! kid in er! dog to vet! seasonal depression!). My writing goals were, in retrospect, laughable. For the month of March I’m pretty sure my # of naps taken exceeded my # of pages written. This post could also be called “Ode to naps.” When I have so many things to do I don’t know where to begin, the answer is often: let’s start with a nap.
It just hasn’t been a great month/season around here. I’m ready to get off the struggle bus, but the bus driver seems to have other ideas. It’s like I’m in the movie SPEED, and if I don’t keep moving 60 miles an hour, everything will explode.
Sitting in front of me as I write this, is a full page of the most earnest goals I wrote out for this week: writing goals, reading goals, critique group goals, other desk tasks, books and podcasts I wanted to finish or catch up with, plans I want to put into motion and appointments I want to book for my kids’ spring break next week.
Cute, right?
There are 22 things on this list, which I made on Monday and painstakingly categorized by how long I thought each task might take me (anywhere from 15 minutes to six hours—ADORABLE). Here we are on Friday afternoon, and I have accomplished four of these tasks, friends. Four! (To be fair, it will be five once I hit ‘post’ on this Substack. Please clap for me.)
I currently have two kids home sick, an entire mountain range of dirty laundry in my closet alone, and a very sad, unfulfilled (but very pretty! and colorful!) to-do list on my desk that will largely roll over to next week, as these lists tend to do. Maybe I was overly ambitious, maybe I suck at budgeting my time, maybe I just didn’t count on spending the entirety of Wednesday in bed watching a long, subtitled film, feeling utterly BLAH, my mood matching the gray gloomy chill outside.
As I’m writing this, my son is calling me from the land line to ask me to make him ramen, while my younger son needs reminders that real actual postage stamps are not craft supplies. I find my mind wandering to when I last washed my bed sheets…or my hair. I just made myself a burnt black breakfast burrito at 2pm. I had cereal and coffee and conversation with my husband in the pitch dark at 5am this morning, bone tired after being awake two hours with our vomiting child, and it was strangely sweet and soothing, perhaps the best quality time he and I have had in weeks. NONE OF THESE THINGS WERE ON THE LIST.
I missed the writing group I’d planned to attend at 10am because I was finally catching up on sleep. That had been on the list.
List vs Life.
Life often wins.
While my details are specific, these larger themes are universal, I know. How often has your week/day/hour gone so sideways, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry? How many times must we surrender to the fact that plans and lists and goals by their very nature are VERY subject to change? As much as this season and month has been a whirlwind, leaping from one squeaky wheel to the next, it hasn’t been all bad. Not nearly. It’s just been…different. Different than the tidy lists I like to make. Different than how the progress bar on Scrivener (the writing software I use) might measure it. Different like going to the orthodontist four times in one week and cleaning up after a dog with digestive issues leading to what looks like actual crime scenes from CSI.
I digress…
As I so often do,I’ll roll over my cute little list, and be grateful for the good that came out of this month. Some special family dinners, a few gloriously warm days, cherry blossoms and good talks with friends.
The older I get the more I realize, things will get done when they get done. As for my writing life, it tends to be more feast or famine than any semblance of a daily routine. But somehow, I still write entire books that way. There’s always next month.
Do what works for you, as much as any of it is in your control to begin with. Don’t beat yourself up for the lack of satisfying checkmarks on your to-do list. Instead, I challenge us all to give ourselves credit for the infinite things we’re accomplishing, needs we’re meeting, tasks we’re slaying, naps we’re taking, wounds were tending to….that few may ever see, that we never thought to put on any list to begin with. Those things count, too. Maybe even most of all.
(*LIFE HACK: Make a retroactive to-do list. At the end of the day or week, write down anything you accomplished that was never on any list to begin with. Things like, “Answered the phone when my neighbor called,” “Braved Trader Joe’s on a Sunday,” and “Delivered fecal sample to vet” all totally count. Behold—you will quickly see that you, my friend, are amazing, you contain multitudes, you did SO MUCH MORE than your silly aspirational lists will ever give you credit for. You are kicking butt in SO MANY WAYS. You simply did more life-ing than list-ing, that’s all.)
WHAT I’M WATCHING:
The TV adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s latest novel is sun-drenched scandal at its finest. A whodunnit that has four adult siblings wondering who they can trust after their mother (one half of a pro tennis dynasty) goes missing.
WHAT I’M READING:
My hometown hero’s latest, FAMILY FAMILY by Seattle author Laurie Frankel is a playful, deeply thoughtful tapestry of a story about what it means to lose and find family, how endings often pale in comparison to the new beginnings they spawn, and how the assumptions we make about life, death, choice, and chance are often both uninformed and harmful. An illuminating, engrossing novel perfect for buddy reads or book clubs (thanks Sophie and Kym for tackling this one with me!).
WHAT I’M PLAYING:
New York Times games! I’ve expanded upon my Wordle habit with a return to Spelling Bee and a foray into Connections. My brain and need for some small level of achievement when larger goals fail me, thank me.
WHAT I’M DRINKING:
Coffee out of this fancy mug! After months in storage, I have resurrected my Ember temperature-holding smart mug and am reminded how nice it is to not have to tear myself away from my desk to go microwave coffee. A splurge-worthy addition to your Mother’s Day (or any) wish list.
WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO:
More live arts in my future. A friend and I are seeing Amy Pohler + Tina Fey on stage next month, and I am swooning over this list of musicals hitting my city in the coming year:
Thanks for reading and please say hi in the comments! Do you have a favorite musical? Do you swear by lists and worship at the alter of Post-its like I do? What grade would you give your own Quarter 1?
Cheers to a bright(er) and (more) satisfying Q2,
Beth
PS - Just before hitting post on this thing, my sweet elderly neighbor called me for the first time in months, and I answered. You can’t make this stuff up.
Check.
Highly recommend adding on Six to your musical season if you haven’t already! I saw it last year and I’m dying to see it again!
Oh you are so not alone. I get it. Here's to health and spring renewal! And Embers! (I just got one for my birthday last month).😊