Ink and Vein

I’m sure I’ve written about this before, and I know I’ve said it and talked about it before, but I have such difficulty with being consistent. I feel, sometimes, like that’s the only consistent thing about me.

I’m not talking about being a flake, or being flighty, or frequently changing my mind or my personality or opinions. I’m pretty steady when it comes to my position on things, pretty consistent when it comes to following through with commitments (though I know I owe people some things, and I’m sorry about that).

I’m inconsistent when it comes to routine, to habit, to ritual.

I struggle to do yoga every day, to write every day, to tidy up and put things away everyday. I struggle to keep to a schedule – though I do show up for work and for appointments like I’m supposed to.

It’s a consistent problem in my life, one that I didn’t realize I had until I was done with coursework in graduate school and I was left more to myself than I had been.

I always knew I had trouble keeping up with housework, with things getting disorganized and chaotic, with the dishes building up in the sink. I didn’t realize, though, that I had such trouble with routine, though when I look back at my childhood I see it quite clearly.

I wonder if I would be better at routine had I gone to school, instead of being homeschooled. Or perhaps I’d just be better at routine if I wasn’t dealing with depression and other neurodivergences.

It is a recurring theme in my life, and I come back to it from time to time and it’s particularly irritating to me at this moment in time because my life seems to be about everything other than what I want it to be, and part of that, I’m convinced, is due to my inability to keep a routine.

I’m spending the majority of my time and energy focused on the bookstore, with some time for editing when the work comes by way. Some time goes to Hysteria Heart, but that is mostly big chunks of time for a flurry of days when we’re producing the latest issue. Some of my time goes to planning workshops and writing clients.

There’s a lot of time, though, that’s unaccounted for, and I am not sure where it goes.

I’m pretty good at taking regular walks, so that’s some of the time, but the rest? I’m not even that social these days, so is the rest of my time just disappearing into doom scrolling? Why don’t I have the time to write, the time to do yoga and tarot? Why am I not going on more hikes? Why is my apartment always a disaster?

Routine, the voice in my head tells me. It’s because you don’t have routine.

This is why you don’t feel you have time or energy to be social, why text messages and conversations feel overwhelming, why the dishes are always piled in the sink even though you have a dishwasher, and why you can’t ever quite manage to put all of the laundry away.

This is why you miss deadlines for submitting essays, why your blog and your Buy Me a Coffee page are woefully empty. This is why you can’t manage to organize more workshops or build a larger client base.

The routine just isn’t there, and the lack of one feels so overwhelming.

Especially considering that I’ve just added another part time job to my life, and I’m going to try to teach a couple courses again this fall, despite having no desire to do so. I don’t want to work more; my credit card statement tells me what I want doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure how I’ll handle more work. I know I’ll try to have a strict schedule and I’ll try to have a morning routine – wake up, coffee, read a little with the cat, do some writing, take a walk, do some yoga, clean up the kitchen, and, depending on the day focus my time on one job or another.

The truth is, that every time I’ve been very busy with work, every other aspect of my life drops off. I get the work done, I fulfill my obligation for the paycheck, but I stop walking, I stop reading, I stop doing anything other than the work and zoning out to TV.

My consistent inconsistency is weighing on me now because I know I’m too tired to handle more work. I know I’m not equipped. I know that teaching again will mean that I stop writing.

My life is a series of pieces that I’m trying to fit together, but I don’t know what the puzzle looks like. I don’t know where the edges are, though I’m hanging onto them quite tightly.

I feel that I am unraveling.

And that has been the most consistent state of my life – the constant feeling that I cannot hold onto the thread, that I cannot keep up.

I promise I’ve tried all the things to keep a routine. I set alarms. I make to do lists. I’m using the Finch app. I have a “one thing a day” system to try to keep up with housework.

The problem is, that I do that “one thing” and then I’m done. I’m cooked. I’ve used my energy. And there are always so many more things.

I tried, early last week, to put my writing first. To write in the morning so that I have energy for it, and then I can go about the rest of my tasks for the day. And it worked, for about two days. And then it didn’t. Then I woke up late because I wasn’t able to sleep, and I had to get to work 30 minutes earlier. Or, I started waking up with the weight of anxiety on my chest, and I couldn’t move soon enough to start writing.

Routine would help me, I know, but somehow I never manage to keep it.

And perhaps at this point it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have experienced the failure of routine so many times, that now I have convinced myself it won’t work, and so it doesn’t.

I suppose some positive thinking could help, here – I can tell myself, “You can do it – just be flexible. Just don’t be hard on yourself. Just stick to the parts you can.”

I’ve been working on that – catching myself in my all-or-nothing thinking and reminding myself that just because some things feel awful, that doesn’t mean everything is, that just because I missed part of my routine for the day doesn’t mean I can’t keep some of it, or that I can’t do something later on. I’m trying to be flexible, to be adaptable.

At the end of the day, though – and at the start – I’m just so very tired.

But, the voice says, you need a routine. A routine will fix it. A routine will make all things possible. You just need a routine, and it will be okay.

Okay. I’ll try again. And again. And again.

There’s one way I’m always consistent; I just don’t quit.