Leaving the Bed Unmade

I like order. In fact, I crave it.

I’m a list-maker, task-doer, checker-off-er, day planner and bed-maker. I color code my closet and label the boxes in storage with electrical tape and a Sharpie. Even behind closed cupboard doors, I don’t like anything askew. It irks me. And I’m mortally ashamed to admit that my most current auto insurance card is always with my registration in the glove box.

And this doesn’t apply to just objects. It’s a mindset. It’s how I approach life. I have a 2, 5 and 10-year plan. I have a project plan to manage my projects plans. My will and health care proxy are clear, and my executor even knows my cell phone PIN. I plan my next day before I go to bed and that propels me forward. I even write about my next year before it happens as if to frame is somehow…to anticipate…to assure something.

I sort life into priority buckets depending upon the week or chapter. Most often? The kids come first. Shamefully, too often, work has as well. Also, my friendships and the needs of others. Seldom my health. And then I fill around it accounting for every 15-minute increment.

I logically know there are only 24 hours in a day but I like to get up earlier than most as if that somehow gives me an advantage. Perhaps it is that hour of undisturbed nature that calls to me or that I have full use of all synapses before CNN or MSNBC claim a few with the news of the day. I peel off hours of sleep by going to bed later, but I still rise before the sun because I can’t fathom wasting a minute. Not even sleeping. I wouldn’t know how.

But despite all of this ‘order’ I have recently come to understand in a very intimate way that, odds are, I will leave the world with my figurative bed unmade. When I’m not quite prepared. While there is so much more to do. With a few ends loose – perhaps many. And that has caused me to question everything.

What is the purpose of all of this order anyway? To control life? Because that’s an impossibility. Life is muddled. Sticky. Even ugly sometimes and, in the next very next moment, beautiful. There is no fairness. There are no guarantees. But there are also remarkable surprises. You love people and they may destroy you anyway. And then others come out of nowhere and love you with a ferocity you didn’t know existed. Because life is disorderly and no amount of white knuckling is going to allow you to fully steer it.

There has been a measure of usefulness to my spreadsheets, my schedules and my grand plans. But they have also constructed guardrails that limited my potential. And much happy chaos was lost because I minded them.

Order is my habit so I imagine I will need to start small to undo it. Perhaps I will leave a throw pillow on the floor for a day or two, and then fail to fold the extra blanket at the foot of the bed. Maybe the shams will find a new resting place and, with time, I will just toss back the sheets and go because each remaining minute is too precious to not fill with creation, love and legacy.

But, most of all, I will no longer waste my time mourning the time I have already wasted. For the day is growing short and I want my messy fingerprints everywhere before the sun finally sets.