I Need the Rhythm but I'm Afraid of It
I’m late! Or perhaps I should say that I’m not late, I merely took a break yesterday? Yes, let's say that. Let me tell you part of the reason why.
Girls always talk about turning into their mothers, whether it’s with pleasure or derision. I think some people, some people who have always been close to their mothers, anticipate it. I never have. I’ve always viewed my mother and myself as two disparate entities, two polar opposites, though I find myself closer to her now at twenty-five living in Jackson. And of course, as you can expect, I am beginning to see a lot of her in myself. It began with relatively obvious things, things I’ve always sort of known that have just come into sharper focus. My mother and I are both social creatures. We both love and find it easy to talk to people. We both love to gossip (in good conscience, I swear). Nowadays, we also both love antiquing, playing with interiors.
The thing that makes me chuckle though, is the thing I never thought would happen, when I found myself muttering to myself Tuesday night, “No can come over here – the house is a mess. I have to clean. I have to clean!”
I’m sure lots of people will remember their childhoods the same way, a mother who was loath to have company over until things were in order, even though, didn’t it seem like things were already in order? And I’m sure lots of people will agree that they swore to never be this way.
So readers. How is it I found myself cleaning until 1 a.m. Tuesday night, for someone who would see my house for maybe five, ten minutes?
To be frank, I think there’s more to it than the simple pattern of becoming your mother.
Last week, I found myself utterly exhausted. Simple tasks were hard to do, so I found myself spending a lot of time on the couch, trapped in my bed, waking up late. Normally, on Wednesday, I organize the house a little, so whatever cleaning that needs to be done on Sunday doesn’t feel so overwhelming.
I didn’t do any of that. I laid on the couch staring at the ceiling on Wednesday night, again for the whole of Sunday. By Monday night, I was sitting on the floor in despair, staring at piles of clothes, of shoes, at the sheets that were covered in cat hair and a little blood stain from where I’d nicked myself in the shower a day or two before. And I found myself frustrated that, even just one little deviation from routine managed to throw me entirely out of orbit, spiraling out into space. When did this happen? Wasn’t I supposed to be flexible, a go-with-the-flow type person? Isn’t this what my parents had always said about me, “Oh, nothing ever bothers Maggie, she doesn’t really care about anything.”
It felt like I cared about something as Tuesday night rolled around. I put on a sports bra and a pair of sweatpants, I made myself a martini, and I got to work. I vacuumed every floor, I vacuumed the couch. I cleaned the litter box, then I deep-cleaned it with vinegar and dish soap. I washed my sheets, I mopped every floor, I put away a bin of shoes I’ve been ignoring for two months. I cleaned until my AirPods died, then my phone, then my laptop. And then I decided that maybe it was time to stop.
I find it infuriating that it seems I have become reliant on routine. I find myself infuriated that it helps me, that it makes my life easier. I’ve always thought of myself as a free spirit, someone who is ready to jump on opportunities for adventure or intrigue. Something about routine makes me recoil, protest.
Let me digress for a moment.
In 2019, after a brief stint in the hospital, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. No doctor I’ve seen subsequently has ever taken this diagnosis very seriously, but then again I have never seen a doctor for very long. The more I read (I highly recommend P.E. Moskowitz’s newsletter Mental Hellth for more on this topic), the more I simply exist, the more I am unsure (if you’ll allow me to be crass), what is actually wrong with me. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder makes sense, and it has offered me some help in taking care of myself. But other things make sense too. And sometimes mental illnesses come in pairs, or threes, or any number of clusters. Regardless of the specifics, I know there’s something going on in my brain that makes things more difficult for me than other people.
My friend, Al, is somewhat of a model for me for things like this. For Al, who is open about being mentally ill, routines, rhythms, regular patterns are essential, not just for productivity, but for existence. But rather than seeing this as some sort of failing, some act of rigidity, Al sees it as an act of deep care, of love for oneself.
I don’t know why I have some romantic idea that operating without some sort of routine makes me “better”, means I am more carefree and spirited. Perhaps being reminded over and over that I am flexible, that I am casual and carefree and that this is what people love about me, ingrained in me that this was the only way for me to be loved, was the only part of me that had value. Even if everything is crumbling around me, if I’m at least carefree about it, people will still care for me, right?
Maybe I’m just afraid of being locked into something, afraid that routine brings with it a loss of excitement, a loss of opportunity. Maybe I’m afraid that routine is the enemy of art. Maybe I’ve only ever heard of routines related to productivity, to capitalism and hustling, some absurd thing you read in Forbes or Business Insider about some big shot CEO whose routine includes wheatgrass shots and his overpriced Peloton and how he only sleeps three hours.
But what if I were to think of a routine, not as a crutch, not as some tool that someone else has imposed on me, but as a way to care for myself? What if routine is instead a way to carve out time for myself, for my writing? What if it becomes a way that I can power through those periods of emptiness, not to make myself work harder, but to make sure I am still giving myself an opportunity for rest? What if my routine is focused around my walk to work in the sun as the weather gets warm, around my writing desk, around an album that deserves a listen straight through while I mop all the floors? This newsletter is part of a routine, and isn’t that a good thing? Hasn’t that given me good things?
Perhaps a little predictability is a way you can get to know yourself more intimately. But what do I know? I’m still getting to know myself, I guess.