The Rituals of the Unritualistic

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

I always wanted to be a planner person.

I would excitedly pick out some overpriced day-timer with matching stickers and a fancy pen and proceed to use it twice and never ever open it again.

I have sacrificed many dollars to the Gods of planning but my efforts remain fruitless. At 41 years of age I am finally ready to admit that I can’t plan worth shit, at least, not like that.

They say it takes 28 days to solidify a routine. “They” clearly don’t have the type of ADHD that resets their brain every morning like it’s their first day on the planet.

But I do.

There are a set number of tasks that I have to get through every weekday morning before the clock hits 830 and I start to panic. I might have my ducks in a row on Monday and then wake up Tuesday completely lacking in the ability to get my shit together. Maybe Wednesday goes well and maybe I forget everything I’m meant to achieve until three minutes before we should be leaving.

There’s no order to the tasks. There’s no plan in place.

Sometimes I’m fine and other times I spin in place trying to remember what I set out to do when I got off the couch.

A lot of people thrive on familiarity and predictability to manage the anxieties that arise from facing the unknown. Managing their time makes them feel like they have some semblance of control in their world.

Unlike them, my routine is simply to get up and face the day in gratitude as best I can. Everything other than that is really just gravy.

That’s all the routine I really need.