Redundancy scares me. I feel like if I get into a pattern of routine, then I’m predictable and once predictable, people then figure me out. Not that I avoid being figured out, but I feel that if I’m predictable, too predictable, people can use that against me.
My mom is a person of routine. Has had the same job that has started at the time on the same day of the week for the last 10+ years. Lived in the same neighborhood for nearly the same amount of time. They have a security system set up at their home. One day, someone broke into a truck at their neighbors home so they asked if I could come over and check out the camera system. Watching the security footage over the week I watched my mom each morning walk around the yard in the dark, go out to her vehicle, fumble with her keys at her truck door, and sit in her vehicle to heat it up. Every. Single. Day. At the same time. I confronted her about this. “Mom! Change up your routine! You can’t go out there every day at the same time and not pay attention to what you’re doing! Have your keys ready! Don’t sit in your vehicle. Stop walking around in the yard.” Here I am sounding like the parent. She laughs me off, feeling secure in her routine. “That’s the fucking problem,” I scoff.
Perhaps this is the issue in my own life. I don’t spare change. I use up every moment it comes into my life. I seek it. I don’t settle. I don’t stick to one thing. My attention span is so short that even it has issues staying focused. I change the furniture in my home around just to see a change. Work experience? Fahgettaboudit! I’ve got a resume as long as my leg. Never been fired but I can say that I’ve stayed and then left because of boredom. Growing up with this “free spirit”, as I call it now, was not easy. Mom was pretty hard on me for not having a routine. Wake up, work, pay bills, come home. Repeat. For the rest of your life. My heart races with anxiety just thinking about that type of restriction. I’m not judging those that need routine. For some, it’s very important to their everyday lives. It helps to keep them focused and on track.
Even if my mother doesn’t understand my freestyle of living, what’s important is that I feel the freedom of living it – and I do. I often look at her and wonder if she feels free. I feel like she is locked in her life of routine. Every day another day like the other. I’ve asked her about it and she laughs, shrugs and says she’s fine with it, but is that because she has done it for so long that’s it’s familiar and easy and change would scare her? She doesn’t even know. That’s robotic to me. I DO NOT want to be that confined in life. Maybe I need to spare some change for my mother.
http://victoriakerrart.blogspot.com/2009/01/three-blind-mice-11-high-sold.html
The Starving Fat Lady 