Time out: Is it possible to resist a regimented life?

What a day, what a day! I woke up in the morning, stayed awake the whole day and finished all the tasks I had planned last night. I know this is a regular day for most people. However, I have been professionally and to a large extent socially inactive for the last couple of months.

Most of my journal entries in these two months have been along the lines of “I couldn’t, just couldn’t open my eyes in the morning. I finally woke up past noon and plunked onto my favorite chair with the laptop and pretty much stayed that way the whole day. I forgot to call the dentist’s office, collect the dry cleaning and attend my book club meeting. It’s 4:30 and can’t sleep…..grrrrr”

When I decided to postpone my return to school, I envisaged days filled with reading, writing, painting, long walks and the joy of being with me. However, in these past months I have done very little of anything. I have skipped most of my book club meetings as I hadn’t finished the books and haven’t read any book beyond the club list. My blogging is as sporadic as it was last year and I am yet to complete the art project I started before I quit my job. My longest walk has been the one to the car which I now use, even to get to the sushi joint down the street. Above all my strongest relationship has been with my laptop but then which relationship wouldn’t be strong if you gave it all your time. As for joy, well it’s been bleeped out of my life.

I have no schedule to speak of. I often go to sleep after my husband has started his day and wake up when I can’t sleep any more. I consider it a good day if I remember to eat two meals of which one isn’t a bag of Cheetos. I cancel out on friends to play another game of Crazy Taxi and have even managed to dehydrate a succulent to death. Every morning before finally dozing off, I chalk out in my head how my day will be when I wake up. Alas it never goes as planned! I have nothing to show for two months of my life unless you consider a high score in Bubble Spinners though I had all the time in the world.

When I barely had couple of hours for myself I used to squeeze so much more in to my life. Discipline was never my virtue but I never realized how first my school and later work schedule, held my life together.

As far back as I can remember, I have always woken to an alarm, carried out my day in a mad rush and slept when I finally couldn’t take it anymore. But I have also smelt the flowers on the way. I am a yogi so I am very much attuned to myself. Then why do I find myself completely lost in the absence of an externally imposed rigid timetable? Probably twenty four years of living by the clock of duty has turned me into its slave and after my dismal battle against it, I have decided to capitulate.

Oh life here I come to your ticks and trrngs!