Unscheduled

H&M dress
Birkenstock sandals
Zara Home tote (similar)
Celine sunglasses
Agape Studio necklace (similar)
Chanel earrings (similar)
Location: Sendall Gardens – Langley, BC

In general, I thrive on routine and order. Most people do, really. It’s comforting to always know what to expect; it also gives us the illusion of control over life when really, mostly, we have very little. Over the years, I’ve developed habits and patterns that work well for me… and for a period of time, I got so entrenched in them that any deviation was a challenge. I struggled with the idea of a life unscheduled, with the concept of hours unplanned or days left to chance.

Do I sound a bit crazy? I think I probably was.

I’ve learned a lot about myself this year, and one of the big lessons was in the illusion of control go. It came from an unlikely place: my work. I describe it as the most unlikely place because work is where I’m least likely to be unscheduled. I keep two calendars – one digital, one paper. On top of that, I have to-do lists and a plethora of tracking spreadsheets and if there is a question I can’t answer, I will dig until the changes. But this spring, a series of unexpected events transpired rapidly and unexpectedly, resulting in my workload tripling from one week to the next. Something had to give. And what gave, surprisingly, was my desire to plan every moment of my life.

Maybe it was calendar fatigue, if such a thing exists…? I doubt it. I think, in reality, I had to focus so much attention on scheduling my work time (and constantly rescheduling it) to try to somehow fit everything in that I realised I really didn’t have control. While I could book and rebook to my heart’s content, there would also be disruptions. And if I let every single one be a setback, every day would be a bad one. Circumstances forced my hand… I let it go, and started just doing the best I could to get comfortable with chaos. Once I realised I could manage it, there was no looking back.

That doesn’t mean that I’m now living life unscheduled. I still love a good plan – and I still keep those two calendars, but I’m a bit more flexible about how I book time in them. And, interestingly, I’m a lot more unscheduled in my off-time. When we went to Vancouver, I made all my plans at the last minute and (very unusual for me) changed some of them as we went on, depending on how I felt. How I felt! Not exactly revolutionary for most people, I know, but for a recovery perfectionist, it was a revelation.

These snapshots are the direct result of an unscheduled day. We were visiting friends in Cloverdale, and I fully handed the planning reigns over to my bestie, knowing she’d find a fabulous way for us to spend our time. Guess what? I was right. And there’s no way we’d have found ourselves at Sendall Gardens if I hadn’t. It worked so well that I actually felt comfortable taking a looser and less scheduled approach to our time in Greece three weeks later… but there’s a lot more on that still to come.

I admit: I still love a good routine. My alarm goes off at the same time every morning, and I dive into the day just like I always did. But I’m learning that striking a balance between scheduled and unscheduled time can be surprisingly liberating.

…so liberating that I, who until recently set aside specific time twice a week to write these posts, forgot about this one entirely until just half an hour before it was meant to go live. There’s no doubt that I’m also a bit disorganized these days – still too much to do and not enough time. But the fact is, it didn’t bother me that I forgot like it might have even a few months ago. I didn’t need the schedule to get it done. There’s a powerful lesson in that.

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