Freeform

I could blame it on moving, on the boxes still waiting to be unpacked or the unresolved organization issues in every room. I could blame myself, my own failure of discipline, my total lack of consistency and weakness for the way the wind blows. No, instead, I'll just blame it on medicine.

My life has no structure. And it can be traced back largely to the fact that, over the course of my 31 years, I can't remember ever having a steady, predictable schedule for more than one year at a time. After all, I've been in school for 25 years of it, followed immediately by residency. Medicine only exacerbated the problem by presenting the monthly challenge of ever-changing rotations. Research lacks even that much structure - an amorphous blob of time with evolving goals and adaptive pursuits. You can plan all you want, but biology will have its own way.

Each morning, I reinvent the course I am going to take that particular day. The alarm goes off - I roll over and decide whether the dream is worth playing out. If not, I get up. Shall I walk Mishka? Maybe yes! Well, no. Will I go to work now? Later would be nice! This week I'll go early. Tomorrow I'll keep dreaming longer and stay very late. What will I do when I get there? Why? And for how long? When will I exercise? Does house cleaning count? Tomorrow will be different. Next month - well, that's a whole new chapter. And next year will be an entirely new invention.

I am living in a blank canvas.

Force me to conform to the shape of a limerick. Make me bend into a sonnet...but don't torture me with this wide expanse of formless white. I can't make heads or tails of it, and every day's choice becomes both a wicked indulgence and a pure torture. I want to have no choice sometimes.

So, in retaliation toward my horrible, inefficient freedom, every now and then I try to regain control of my life the only way I know how: by making lists.

1. Clean the bathrooms
2. Exercise at 5:30 PM every day
3. Go through the mail
4. Take Mishka to the dog park every morning
5. Image 30 mice
6. Go hiking
7. Use spare time to do other items on list
8. Take time to enjoy a quiet moment
9. Write a letter to Liz
10. Iron shirts

I make big plans to plan out every hour, every day, every month. It never lasts. Mostly they never make it to Phase I of implementation.

When the planets align, sometimes these plans do stick. I have the greatest chance of success when life holds steady for several months on end...I can relax a bit into the sameness. But if that goes on too long, I get itchy for change. I ache to stir it up a bit. Because, deep down, I know that the way things are right now, well, that's not the only way they can be....