Thursday, February 19, 2015

Why I think I'm reasonably sane inspite of many tumultuous periods & longstanding issues! :>)

I grew up in a rather communal setting. My mother, a brother, and a few of her sisters raised their families under the same roof. Today I reflected on a really valuable lesson that I learned in that setting. Although they were young women with jobs and full social lives, we were a house of routines.

Most weeknights, this is what we did:

  • arrived home at different times
  • an aunt or mom prepared an easy three- or four-course dinner as soon as she changed from work clothes into house clothes
  • whomever ate but didn't cook cleaned the kitchen (I was always in this category.)
  • turned off the kitchen lights and retired to the living room to relax
  • took turns washing up, brushing teeth, ironing, talking on the phone (one bathroom, one house phone)
  • watched a couple of sitcoms or a drama (Mod SquadKojak and Marcus Welby, MD come to mind)
  • ran to get hair rollers during a commercial and did our hair in unison with individual mirrors on our laps (Each person had her own curler bag.)
  • dispersed by 10 pm to our respective rooms.
The house went quiet.

No matter how nuts I may have been during various segments of my life, this has always been my sort of mindless, "go to" modus operandi. 

I won't belabor this point, but routines, if they encompass daily requirements for feeling and looking good, breed sanity.  When we don't have a system for taking care of the necessities, stress moves in. Fast! We have to eat, groom, bathe, clean up, etc. When these things happen randomly and haphazardly, it's like having perpetual buzzards flying above your head. When they are taken care of systematically, the buzzards just fly away, and you're left with the satisfaction of taking care of the details of your life.

So find a routine that works for you. Even with classes and sports and whatever comes, make a blueprint that lays out the order of the "must dos".

(Man, I feel like Heloise!)