Not long ago I saw a bit of advice, likely on the internet of course, suggesting instead of writing To Do lists, we should write Done Lists of the day’s accomplishments. “That’s probably worth a try,” I thought as I continued adding items to my To Do list for the next day.
Tonight I am sitting with shame for the amount of time I wasted to laziness today. Wasn’t overly tired (though it’s been roughly 18 months since I’ve had sufficient sleep on the regular) or overlwhelmed. I was simply stuck in the Doldrums like Milo in Juster’s novel.
So, let’s try a Done List:
*changed, clothed, fed Larkin
*went for a stroller-pushing walk
*picked up two costume pieces for some of my student actors
*fed Larkin and got her down for her afternoon nap
*read for pleasure
*vacuumed
*sent a few work emails (for three different gigs)
*prepped caramel rolls for tomorrow (these are not from scratch nor impressive in any way.)
*went for an evening walk with Larkin and supported our entrepreneurial neighbors’ food truck, bringing dinner to my husband and brother-in-law
*at a few different points during the day, we walked over to our home where a small army of men were working on the renovation process.
*additional diaper changes and snacks, etc throughout the day.
This is not such a bad list. (I am sure the fact of that small construction army laboring on my home emphasizes my feeling of laziness. I feel terribly unhelpful.)
So, the day was not completely wasted as a voice in my head wants me to believe.
However, I also know that the days when I really knock things out AND still caring for Larkin filled me with a feeling of accomplishment and more energy. I acknowledge that there were multiple times today where I said to myself–sometimes even out loud–how stuck I was feeling and needed to do…something. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of time ticking away.
“Time is strange,” I told a friend earlier this week.
We marked 15 months “topside” with Larkin.
We marked Clancy’s would-have-been 13th birthday; he’s been gone five and half months.
I’m about to turn 41.
All of these seem equally impossible.
“We are all time travelers,” Erwin Raphael McManus notes in Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment. “Moving through moments is as natural as breathing. There are, of course, limitations. We cannot travel backward, and we can travel only one moment at a time. Nevertheless, we are all time voyagers leaving history in our wake, pioneering into the future.”
Time to get out of the Doldrums.
Forward, Time Travelers!
Here’s to marking moments.
Here’s to seizing the next moment.
And the next.
And the next.
Here’s to a new day.
A new year.
Thank God for these moments, these chapters, and for second, third, and forty-first chances.
Reflections & Connections 