it's thursday, right?

My work schedule has changed. For the first time in ten years. This might be the most startling thing that has happened to me in a decade.

One would not know it if one saw my daily life now, but I actually thrive in routine. It's why I loved marathon training.  Run this number of miles over this amount of time broken up daily and you'll be able to cover 26.2 miles, but you must get out there and run the miles every day. It's how the bathroom in my old apartment was sparkling.  Cleaning day was every Monday afternoon.  No exceptions. I cannot even tell you how comforting this whole routine business made me feel. There were palpable results.  Each day I ran I was closer to my goal and I could feel it. Each Monday afternoon, I could see that the effort I was putting into scrubbing my bathtub meant a sparkling clean tub. 

I can almost pinpoint the moment I started to feel suffocated by routine.  It was when I moved into the barn.  The cleaning thing quickly went out the window as the barn was...well...a barn.  A living space, but a living space crawling with spiders and a door that every time you opened would blow leaves into the living room and a bathtub drain that would back-up so quickly it seemed stupid to even try to keep clean. It was a losing battle. And I met new people when I moved. New people who seemed to be having a lot of fun not spending hours training for a race. My routines started to feel pointless.

I miss my routines. And I know that now after my hours changed. The change isn't dramatic. I'm working Tuesday nights instead of Wednesday nights. I start work an hour later every day. I have to work every other weekend.  But it's enough of a change, I've been thrown.  Yesterday morning I woke up at 8am intending to hit the market except the market is on Wednesday mornings. This morning I woke up convinced it was Thursday, but it was Wednesday. 

I've decided to combat my confusion with running. I'm not training for anything.  I am slooooow and pokey. But every morning I need to get out there. It's grounding. It's comforting. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.

Now if only I could get inspired to clean the bathtub more...