Good job nailing September, my friends! We’re in the home stretch now!
For today’s edition of Living the In-Between Times, I thought I’d do an update on how this month’s experiment has been going.
How it started… Observation:
I have a very tired pattern of screwing myself over with my to-do lists. Writing down waaaay too many things (more things than any one person could probably accomplish in a day, a month, maybe a lifetime), and then also fashioning said list and its completion into a yardstick by which to measure my worth.
Experimental Question
Is it possible to defang my to-do list so it becomes just a piece of paper and not the scary, be-all-end-all signifier of my worthiness?
Method & Hypothesis
Put one impossible thing on my to-do list every day, as a reminder that doing “all the things” is impossible, as well as providing a much-needed hedge against my (very human) tendency to overweight doing over being.
Materials
To-do List, Imagination
Results
Last week at bedtime I found my daughter draped despondently across her bed. She told me she felt like a “puddle,” and she wasn’t sure how to get out of it.
“I just want to be happy again,” she moaned. I sat with her for a moment thinking about the friend drama we’d already spent quite some time discussing that afternoon. She was up to her ears in advice. She didn’t need any more words.
I told her I could help her, but first she needed to promise to follow my directions exactly for each of the three steps I’d take her through.
(Of course, dear reader, I had no idea whether or not I could actually help her out of the puddle! These things are never a guarantee. But wisdom gleaned from my own “puddle” days reminded me that leaning on someone else’s hope and optimism can sometimes be just the spark we need to begin to find our own again.)
Our first agenda item was a tight hug. “Squeeze me tiiiiiighter!” I yowled, as she giggled and wrapped her soft arms more forcefully around me.
Our second task was to perform sun salutations. We stood facing each other and inhaled deeply. Sweeping our arms up high, our palms drifting higher and higher, I suddenly remembered my morning’s to-do list.
I’m doing it. I’m touching the sky.
I imagined our fingers stretching up, beyond the ceiling of my daughter’s bedroom up to the liminal space that hovers between our bounded human existence and the infinitudes of space and beyond. This flash of imagination was enough to flood me with awe and gratitude—for this moment, for this girl, for this life.
As we completed Task #3, a full-blast, rock-out karaoke session complete with hairbrush microphones and lots of head-banging, hair-tossing, air guitar solos, we emerged from the puddle victorious, ready for another hand of whatever life would throw at us tomorrow.
Other Data
On Sunday, I tossed “Brush greatness” on my list. As I took my morning jog, I smiled to myself and reached out to run my fingers over the deeply furrowed bark of the trees I passed on my route.
This morning I put “Break records” on my list. I’m pretty sure I did break a record—for time spent scrolling in a parking lot in an effort to avoid entering a gym to perform a short workout. In other words, I’m breaking records at being the most human human on the planet! I will be looking out for my trophy in the mail.
Conclusion
I read this week that maintaining levity—a sense of lightness and ability to look for the delight rather than the disappointments in situations—can increase creativity and decrease the stress-y fight or flight physiological responses that can grip us each day. After trying this experiment for a couple of weeks, I believe it.
The impossible to-do list experiment has reminded me that I get to CHOOSE what I put on my list every day. If I’m annoyed or stressed about “having to” do any one (or half dozen!) of my to-dos, I can recall and recommit to the meaning behind my daily tasks, or decide to say no to the things that don’t matter.
More importantly, throwing the impossible onto my to-do list recasts my life in an instant. Suddenly, I’m not just some random-suburban-lady-doing-all-the-mom-things. I’m a pilgrim, a seeker. Open to possibility, just a step away from a miracle.
And besides, I’d trade a paper strewn with bullets for a chance to touch the sky any day.
“Liminal space”
Liminal might be my word of the month. Not sure I have ever said or written it. Beautiful.
All the love, my dear.