On Feeling Behind At the Beginning

Most days I wake up in the morning feeling like I have to catch up. Catch up on chores. Catch up on writing. Catch up on storing breastmilk in the fridge. Catch up on…life. I have an obsessive tendency to create lists for myself. I’ve done this since I was a young gal in parochial school. (Discipline was close to godliness in the eyes of my Mother Superiors. I aimed to please.)

Back in those days, it was easier for me to write lists, check off each item EACH DAY and then start another list for the following day. But as an adult, things feel harder. Maybe because I’ve lived on this planet longer so I’ve have had more opportunities to be jaded. Or maybe because I’m just plain lazy. Whatever the reason, living up to a bunch of self-imposed rules that I’ve set for myself can drag on a gal. It certainly has dragged on me.

So one day, I decided to put the list aside and blow spit bubbles with my two year old.

One day, I decided to roll around on the floor with the baby.

One day, I decided to knit a toe sock.

One day, I decided to stare outside the window and watch a bird putter around the backyard.

And it felt good. Not in a ‘I’m being a self-indulgent, lazy bum right now’ way, but in a graceful way. My mind was free to think about what really mattered to me in those “lazy” moments. Yeah, I still had stuff screaming to be crossed off  on my ‘to do’ list, but it didn’t tyrannize my soul. I didn’t feel behind.

I made space for grace.

That’s what I need to be reminded of each day. That grace surrounds me, I just have to make time and space for it. Because one day the life I’m living will come to an end. One day, I won’t wake up feeling like I have to catch up because my physical body will be decomposing in the soil. Sounds morbid, but it’s true. It’s true for all of us.

There’s nothing to catch up on.

I am not behind.

There’s no rat race to win.

It’s all a self imposed illusion.

I can simply be. Be in God’s grace. Walking (sometimes stumbling) with Him.

All the while chucking the ‘to do’ list.