The Routine-Driven Life

Sitting at a table outside Great Harvest yesterday was a grandma, a mother, a father, an aunt and an 18-month-old. As they ate samples of wheat bread smothered in honey-butter, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and oatmeal cookies, they watched the cars pass by.  We were all watching.  But only Carter was appreciating.  While I was divvying a cookie between my mother and myself, making a mental note of approximately how many calories this cookie would detract from my daily allowance, my nephew was appreciating something as simple as a truck backing out of its parking space, or marveling at the difference in the size of a bus and a small car. Where I saw a stream of traffic passing by, something that is routine to my day, Carter saw something worth looking at.  He saw that the world was actually quite a remarkable place, cars and all.

There is so much I could learn from my nephews.  They don't care about what shirt they're wearing, or how their hair looks, or if there's chocolate cake smeared all over their faces--they care about who they're with, the relationships they have with other people, and the next person they need to smile at.  And, above all that, they appreciate the routine of life.  They don't wake up disappointed at the prospect of spending yet another day simply playing in the family room with mom (but, let's be honest, who would be?). Carter doesn't dismay when he ends up standing beside our pool, once again throwing every ball he can onto the pool cover.  He relishes in it.  Rowen's not upset that he's simply throwing Cheerios into a glass of water for entertainment.  He's happy about it.  Each of my nephews makes the best he can out of the routine; he enjoys every second of it.  He understands that life is not made important by the anomalies--like being able to go to Hawaii before his first Birthday--but that life is made up of the routine, so he had better make the routine count.

I am often reminded of (and even tempted to use) the phrase, "I just need a break from the routine."  Life is the routine! Our lives are defined by those routines, whether we spend them in school or at work or at home or elsewhere.  I waste so much time being "caught in the routine," when I should actually be enjoying the routine.  My life is a routine.  Sure, there are scattered oddities that make up some weeks and don't make up others, but generally, my life follows the same pattern.

Each day, I wake up as the same person I was yesterday.  I will always wake up in the same skin, the same hair, the same body as the day before.  I will never stop being Jessica.  That's the routine.  But what's important for me to realize is that my routine can be monotonous or it can be compelling.  I will be going to school today.  And tomorrow.  And the next day.  And I will be going to church on Sunday.  And the next Sunday.  I can wake up thinking, "I just have school today."  And I can tell people who ask, "Oh I'm just going to school, you know, the usual."  I can see myself stuck in a monotonous routine.  OR, (and thank goodness there is an alternative), I can realize that the routine makes up my life, so I better make the routine good.

I so often overlook the small details of my life in favor of the bigger picture, thinking the details don't matter--it's the big picture that counts. But the bigger picture is made of the details! To the world, what contributions I make with my day might only ever be ordinary.  But to myself, and to the small sphere of influence around me, my day could be extraordinary.  But only if I choose to change the details--the small, minute,  seemingly insignificant facets of my life--will my routine-driven life become more than ordinary.  

As I've watched my sisters mother their sons (I just wanted to word that in the most confusing way possible), I sometimes wondered whether they got sick of waking up and doing the same thing every day.  I wondered if I would feel like that as a mother.  But then I saw how quickly a spitting-up baby of 3 months becomes a walking, jabbering child of 18 months, and I realized that when we look back at how we spent our time, it all comes back down to the routine.  My sisters (or anyone else, in any situation in life), can look back and think "Where did my sweet, newborn baby go?"  And hopefully, if they ask this question, they won't answer themselves: "He got caught up in the routine."  I'm sure both my sisters can answer that question saying, "He got older, but I've enjoyed every second of it!"

I would do so well to know that, like Carter, I'm not letting life rush by me in a monotonous stream of traffic--I will take time to appreciate the red car, the silver car, the school bus, the biker, all as equally important details in the bigger picture.