Being Uncomfortable

I've gotten to a certain age where I'm pretty stuck in my routine. I mean, it's pretty easy seeing as I have young children, and children, as they say, are creatures of routine. Happy kids have a routine. We wake up and have breakfast (usually my awesome 7 ingredient oatmeal which my husband is only so happy to help me replicate on days when I do not want to get out of bed), play games or just chill for a bit. Then we do some sort of activity (if it's not the bone-chilling -18 out as it is today, we usually play in the snow) or go to the store for groceries (and coffee). Lunch, followed by nap, then calm after-nap activities, and then something before dinner (either outside, going to grandma's house, or the store depending on what we did earlier). After dinner we do some physical activity involving walking (usually at the mall since it gets dark at 5:30 still), then bath, books, and bed. Bed is always around 7:30-8, wake up is usually between 7:30-8. A very planned out life (or at least the bones of the day are very structured and don't usually get moved).

Unfortunately, this level of life routine has got me stuck in a personal rut. I do the same thing everyday. When the boys are in bed, I would go watch some tv while knitting (or folding laundry), and be in bed by 10. Not much wiggle room, considering the 8 pm bedtime can often slowly leech into 9, as kids want sips of water, or another story, etc. This hour is golden. I don't want to do anything except what I want to do. I've guarded it closely. And it has become a rut. There are so many things I could do in the evening but I want to be lazy.

It's a bit like an analogy I saw in a magazine about clutter (stay with me for a minute, it'll make sense)- by setting down an object, be it mail, random items, laundry, whatever on the areas where things congregate, you are saying that your time now is more important than your time later. You are robbing yourself of that time freedom later. If you had decided to take the extra minute to put the bill where it needs to go (or heaven forbid actually pay it), put the socks away, put the toys in the appropriate bins, books on the appropriate shelves, you wouldn't need to spend the time later to do it. Think of it- if every time you set something down, you decided to put it in it's right home- you would have clean counters. You would have time where you didn't have to sigh about the counters and then spend 45 minutes trying to figure out where stuff goes, what to do with it. Or if you have a spot where laundry piles up- you take off your work clothes and something isn't dirty so you don't need to throw it in the bin, and you are just too lazy to hang it up or find a cupboard for it. This is my life (except I don't work). If you take the extra minute to hang it, fold it, put it away, you wouldn't have the mound of shame looking at you while you are surfing netflix.
So going back to my evenings- I am robbing myself of life. I just want to veg out and be lazy, be by myself, and I need to start doing things. Now see, things make me uncomfortable. I like to do my routine. It's ingrained, it's automatic, and it's comfortable.
I wrote that I took up running (and I will re-take it up once it's safe to run outside again). I have decided to take up yoga as well. I tried yoga once when I was in undergrad; my friend Holy and I went and it was so boring. I was not zen at all. I would try to hold my poses longer than other people, I couldn't zone out. But I guess something has changed in 13 years.

One- I have no flexibility at all. Ow. Man it hurts to work those areas that enjoy sitting on the couch eating Ben & Jerry's. Two- I don't mind it so much. Granted, I still want to be the best at things, but I'm working on quieting the voices. I need to be gentle with myself. I can't be awesome at everything from the get go. Sure would be sweet if I was, but it's just not going to happen. It's ok to be uncomfortable. I laughed last night at class as I'm trying to stand on one foot and do some sort of squat pose. It's uncomfortable to be the baby, learning for the first time. It also puts me in a better space to teach my children. I get upset when I ask them to do something for like the hundredth time and they can't. It is teaching me to have patience with the growing process, to help my children navigate the uncomfortable learning areas, and to show them that they can always be growing, always learning, always changing.

I'm very uncomfortable, but I'm starting to be more zen about it.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

A few weeks ago I cleaned my closet.
It was much overdue.
I couldn't shut the doors, there were piles everywhere, too many hangers, etc.
I commandeered my husband's storage cubes since he had clothes in there untouched for the past two years. I sorted, made piles, donated things. I got serious about the closet.
In what little time I had.
Here is the remaining side of the closet:

It's hidden back behind the closed door. The door can't even be opened because of the stuff in front of it.

So I have nice tidy spaces amidst messy spaces. This, I found, is what being a mother is all about. You take care of the things you can, and try not to feel guilty about the things you can't. My closet is an easy space for me not to care about, since it is quite tucked away. My room is basically always shut so the boys can't rampage through it, and I rarely have visitors. No one will see this space (especially since the door can't be moved to access it). 

I recently came to the realization that: 1. I am the one who will clean things. If something is messy, it is up to me to clean it, or it shall remain in that state indefinitely. 2. It is FAR easier to keep a space clean if it is uncluttered.

Both of these realizations suck. I am not a cleaner, pre-children. Sure, spring clean. Sure, deep clean occasionally. But every day clean? Nope. I have had to whistle a different tune lately. Two solid-food-consuming boys make a mess. They have dishes, dirty clothes, messes everywhere they go. I can't turn a blind eye (well I could but my cleaning OCD would get the best of me). So I do dishes after every meal. Those five minutes post-meal save me from a 30+ minute daily dish-a-thon. I vacuum daily. I steam mop at least weekly, if not twice a week. I clean the bathroom twice a week. There are quite a few tasks that I do that pre-baby me would be shocked at. But pre-baby me really had no effing idea what she was getting in to. 

To the second point, eliminating clutter. Now I love me some clutter. I like collecting things. I do not like parting with things. But when you live in a 950 square foot house without a garage or really many closets to speak of, you have no where to put the clutter. It lives on the counters, on shelves, in broad daylight. When trying to clean around these piles, you start to realize how little you need the clutter. Now I am a clothes and shoes-a-holic. I want it all. I can foresee every reason to keep every item. I could gain or lose weight. I could get a professional job. I might need to go to a fancy event. Blah. A million reasons why I am a slave to my clothes. So I went though and got rid of. I gave my friends and family a chance to pick through it. That helped. At least it doesn't feel like such a betrayal to the intentions I had for the clothes if I give them to someone I know. So the piles dwindle down. 

I still have clutter. I still have areas I need to control. But it's like life, you deal with what you can when you can, and give yourself some grace to deal with the rest when you can.