The To-Do List
Within five minutes of waking up this morning I was cleaning a large pile of poop off the floor of the laundry room. It’s actually a nice change from the past two mornings which dawned to reveal me scrubbing the same creature’s poop out of the (brand new) rug in the playroom, so today was a refreshingly simple clean up. This dog has the GI issues of that lady that used to do all the Phillips Magnavox commercials. Except the Phillips lady knew how to treat it – for us, it’s just an unwelcome and increasingly more consistent surprise found first thing in the mornings, or sometimes, unfortunately found in the middle of the night in a squish of soggy socks and uncensored language. It’s not her fault. She’s an old dog with a sordid past, but she’s always guarded us well. I sleep better knowing she’s in the house, but these days that also includes waking up knowing she’s in the house, along with whatever gift she may or may not have left. Today it’s on the laundry room floor.
I also know that within an hour, I will be cleaning human poop off a one-and-a-half-year-old as well. And the chances are good there will be some other type of poop cleanup before I go to sleep tonight. Thing 1 and Thing 2 will emerge soon from their room to run through the house demanding juice, cereal, and entertainment (Mom, Mommy, Momma, Mom! Mom! Mummy. Mum! Mom!!) and for just this moment, the mess cleaned, the house is still and quiet (or mostly quiet, save for a few foreshadowingly loud stomach gurgles from the direction of the sleeping dog). I make coffee and stare out the window, holding the mug that says, “I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor,” the chilly, grey morning a reminder of the kind of morning that usually falls on this day each year. The kind of day that always forced you to have skating parties and bowling parties growing up, instead of swimming pool parties, or hayride parties, or lake parties, or anything outside at all. It’s just too cold out there. I take a sip of the coffee and turn back to the room, taking in a room now fully occupied by tiny humans, Apple Jacks soaring through the air, juice boxes squeezed into patterns on the floor, the dog lurking from under one piece of furniture to the next, just trying to escape the madness, danger, and hilarity caused by two small boys. Someone is always hungry, someone is always tired. This is the season we are in; there’s literally a lot of shit to deal with. Today is my birthday. I am 37.
The tiny humans find me in the kitchen, giggling and clutching white envelopes with sticky fingers, the word “mama” scrawled in my husband’s writing across each one. A massage gift certificate from each (well played, husband), some other thoughtful gifts from the man himself, and then the day goes on just like any other. And that’s okay. We make snacks, and read books, and paint, and answer emails, and take naps, work when and where we can, Facetime with family, and watch Daniel Tiger. We’re not going out on the town, we’re not having friends over, we’re quietly celebrating another trip around the sun, and honestly, I’m right here with the people I’d most choose to be with today. The pandemic just makes it easy. I love everyone else, but at the end of the day, these are my people, my sticky, crumb-covered, cow-licked, wonderful people. And at this season in life, the birthday is really just any other day. (I’m not talking to you Kim Kardashian - put your hand down and get on your yacht and cruise on out of here to your private island birthday.)
Honestly, today I’m just celebrating surviving the last year of my life. Midnight rang in loudly just weeks ago, signaling the new year and everyone’s naive hope for an instantly better year, which, of course, was squashed less than a week later with a siege on our capital. Yes, I’m actually writing out the words ‘siege on our capital.’ 2020 about killed us all, and 2021 was already shaping up to be just as chaotic, just as unpredictable and harmful. I had already started assuming that this year might be better avoided altogether, like an unwelcome relative popping up at the door unexpectedly – let’s all draw the curtains and pretend we aren’t home.
It’s getting old. I’m getting old. I wish we could all abide by B.D.’s logic of, “I was so much older than. I’m younger than that now.” These days I’m feeling more Bill Wither’s “Grandma’s Hands.” Please pass the eye cream, cancel my judgmental notions about any type of wrinkle-reducing plastic surgery, order one more case of hand sanitizer, and try your best not to crawl back into bed with your allergen-reducing pillow clamped firmly over your head. (Because you’re old now, and you can’t deny that you have some sort of specialty pillow on your bed now. Looking at you, lumbar support.)
But I had a realization in the past few weeks, and it happened at the beach (as most good revelations do) while staring at a sunset (as most good revelations do). Maybe it was because it was the first glass of wine after a day that had gone on too long, or maybe it was the realization that I had been at the beach for two days already and had not yet put my feet into the sand or sat watching a sunset like I was now. It was shameful. A vacation that had been ruined with work, with me creating unrealistic expectations for myself that actually thought I could do it all. And the realization? I can’t do it all. Nor did I want to. In fact, half of the things staring back at me on my to-do list were things I just. Don’t. Want. To. Do. It was exhausting.
Home from the beach, putting my kids to bed/responding to emails on my phone, my three-year-old was doing a countdown-blastoff routine that ended every time with him careening towards the bed, bouncing violently off of it, and then landing in some sort of almost-broken clump on the floor, muffled from a true crash every time by me hurrying into the space to act as a sort of shock absorber. All of this while the one-and-a-half-year old is yelling a combination of the words “blastoff” and “mama” while attempting to do every single thing his older brother is doing. No real sleep in almost three years, no real sense of relaxation in longer than that, and every nerve was on edge in a battle of anxiety, already claiming to have been shot and starting to shut down. I lost it. I threw the phone down and screamed, “Stop it! Stop it! This is freaking important!” To which the three-year-old yelled back, “No, THIS is freaking important!”
And he was right. The email on the phone? So unimportant. It was a nothing task in a too-short lifetime of searching for real moments, moments like these with my kids that I should have been giving priority, times like these that will all of a sudden be very far away when I turn around and these two are angsty, talking-back, mustache growing teenagers, and these sweet little creatures that smell like soap and powder and chocolate chip cookies, the ones that just want me to watch them become rocket ships and blastoff, these two will be gone forever. Shame. On. Me.
And then today’s date reminded me that I had added another tally mark on my life board and was still filling my time and schedule with things that truly didn’t matter to me, people that were making creativity difficult and adding negativity to every space they occupied, items on a to-do list that were taking me away from what was truly important.
So – I made a new to-do list for the year. It started with clearing the clutter, prioritizing with real priorities, releasing the negative people and work back into the fray and not having a regret for doing so. Of course you can’t let go of all of your work (Kim Kardashian, I already told you once; scram!) but you can choose to only work with people and organizations you believe in, to make sure that your family plate isn’t being lightened to make room for work that doesn’t really matter, to cut out the noise and drama. Cut out the clients and people who don’t value your time, make more room for the ones who do. Update your list to include to-do items that mean something to you. “Build a fort with my kids and read books in it while we eat peanut butter crackers” should be pretty high up on my priority list; if it’s not, I need to check myself (before I wreck myself). And the work items? For me, the artistic and creative should take top billing. Otherwise it’s going to be work. And the items on your list that don’t fulfill you? Delegate it to the people who like to do, well, the rest. I’m thankful each and every day for the people on my team that are good at their jobs. All I had to do was be smart enough to hire them. Stressors on your list that you can pass along to others? Do it. Hire (good) people to help if you can. Get rid of the meaningless things on your list. Cut out the conversations about family drama that have absolutely nothing to do with you. Ignore the gossip. Make room for more fort building or yard playing, or gardening, or fishing, or book-writing, or theatre-building, or family-growing, or whatever makes sense for the season you are in, for the person you are, for the person you want to be.
The work is going to be there, but if you’re working with people that think and operate like you do, there should never be an issue. Last year, when I couldn’t make a certain meeting time work for a client because I was going to be with my kids, she said, “Ugh! Aren’t kids the worst?” This made it easy to know exactly where this client would fall on the chopping block. And it wasn’t her fault – she just wasn’t in the same season as I was, and that was okay. But it was no longer going to work with the season I am in. Chasing people around for payments? Unnecessary stress and annoyance. No time for that! And clients who were consistently late, or missed meetings, or didn’t show up ready? I’ve been there - I’ve been in that season before. But then I grew up and realized that no one else’s time was more important than mine, and anyone that acted otherwise just wasn’t worth it. Not my season.
To celebrate my birthday today, I put my Apple watch into my desk drawer and took my old watch to the jeweler to have the battery replaced. I created an in-office schedule for myself that offers limited yet consistent weekly availability to my clients and an out-of-office schedule that creates more availability to my family. I turned off all social notifications on my phone. I turned off the news. I turned on some Lionel Richie. I felt better.
The to-do list is still full, but part of the list is made of meaningful projects for clients that I love (see also: good people), and the other half of the list is made of fun things to do with my kids, ideas and projects and dreams that I share with my husband, and a few things just for me, those much-talked-about-and-often-pushed-down-the-list self-care items. The oxygen mask theory is right. Get your mask on first – you are no use to yourself or anyone else if you aren’t firing on all cylinders.
The stress of the past year offered realizations that those closest to me are the ones I should always hold the closest, above all else, and if the to-do list doesn’t reflect that sentiment, then my life never will. And yes, you’re going to have to deal with some shit in your schedule (for some of use, more literally than others). But those moments will roll off a lot easier if the rest of your life is being lived exactly as you hoped it would, if your to-to list has room for those you love…and that should also include you.
