No Obligations

I don't do well without obligations. I'm uncertain how to structure my day and so I find myself creating obligations through detailed lists. "Clean the house" is on my list as are laundry, grocery shopping, grooming the dog, exercising, and watering the tomatoes.

Then I feel compelled to get it all done. If I don't, I feel like a failure, which is incredibly silly because 1) I made the list and it was arbitrary and 2) no one but ME is keeping track of the list's completion. It's laughable when I stop to think about it, but I'm not laughing most days. Most days I'm moving from one item to the next trying to get them all done during the day so I feel accomplished.

My stress about it all is even worse when spontaneity gets in the way. Ann is my nemesis. She has no lists. She just moves through the day based on her whims. She wants to mow the lawn, so she does. She sees an ad in the paper for a night stand so she wants to go check it out. She sits on the couch and reads the paper, drinking her coffee in the morning sun and feels no rush to get started on whatever needs to get started on. She wants to read a book and fall asleep in the lounge chair on the deck, this is exactly what she does. No worries, no stress, no self-imposed guilt.

"Time's a-wasting," I'm thinking and I verbally poke at her to figure out what her vision of the day might be. But even if she can tell me her plan, it's never set in stone. The neighbor will walk by and all of the sudden Ann is in a long conversation about random topics and then the neighbor invites us over for some shaved ice or to see her latest photographs from her last trip. Ann never feels inconvenienced. Rather she jumps at the chance to stray from the schedule, the schedule she has no idea exists.

I go into a panic. It happened yesterday. We went for a long walk with the neighbor and after, she invited us over for a cool iced treat. I could feel my stomach tighten. We'd just spent two hours walking, which I'd planned on, but now we were going to spend unscheduled time with the neighbor, who I really like, but she wasn't on the list and all those other items on the list would have to be put off to a later time.

I went straight to the bathroom.

Ann headed to the neighbor's house. Once I'd calmed myself down, I headed to the neighbor's and then found myself getting antsy when we sat in her living room and "chatted." I don't do chatting well and I worked on my deep breathing to avoid being irritated that Ann was not as wedded to "the list" as I was.

Okay, so I hadn't even written the list nor had I verbalized it to Ann. I just needed her to know that visiting with the neighbor WAS NOT in my plans for the day. She doesn't get it. She's still very patient with me, but she doesn't get it.

It happened again today. She mentioned a few things we'd like to do and the next thing I know, we're doing them. When I don't make a list I have nothing to follow, no regiment to stick to and I end up following along, which makes me very tense. So there I was, following Ann to the Sculpture Park, driving to Cost Plus for a nightstand and a laptop sleeve, buying a water bottle holder for the neighbor at the bike shop, and stopping by the bank to get some cash.

"I didn't realize we were going to do all of this," I snipped and she looked at me like I'd just made a mountain out of a mole hill.

I guess I was, but in my mind there were things to be done. What those things were...well, I hadn't had time to make the list so I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing.

And when there is nothing really to do, I'm not sure how to fill that space. I always feel as if I should be doing something or going somewhere. The "next thing" is the goal, not the "now thing" especially when that now thing is empty of obligations.

"You're stuck in the shoulds," my friend told me. "You need to go out and do some should nots."

"What?" I could feel myself forming a knot in my already tightly wound stomach.

"You know," she flipped her hands gesturing to something concrete that I had yet to see, "All your life you do shoulds. Like you should go visit your friend, you should go to the concert, you should clean the house, you should stay at the job you hate and you get stuck there doing all of things you don't really enjoy or want to do. So, do some should nots."

"Give me some examples," I said, skeptically.

"Oh I don't know what your should nots are. Maybe reading on the couch all day or buying the expensive olive oil. It's up to you what those should nots are."

"How will I know when I see them?"

"I don't think you see them," she said in a very confident tone. "I think you feel them. Just listen for them and then try one. Not the really scary ones, but the ones that are incidental and will give you practice at not always doing the shoulds."

On one level I get what she's saying and it's not like I can't stop cleaning the house. I have on a number of occasions. It's that I feel guilty about it because IT WAS ON THE LIST and I didn't do it. Even if it's not on the list, I feel like I should clean and if I don't, well then I've failed. And it's not just cleaning. I should be doing something at all times.

"I still don't get it," Ann smiles at me when I try to explain it.

And when I think about it, I don't get it either. Random should be okay. It's what I longed for when I was mired down with school and work. Now that I have it, I'm not sure how to work with it. It wasn't as if "following" Ann today was keeping me from something. When I relaxed into it, it was kind of fun to shop around or walk through the park and look at the art next to the most spectacularly blue day.

This then is one of the many areas of my life I get to practice now that I really have no obligations. Random and spontaneous.

Rubin is a good teacher for this next lesson in my life. He wakes in the morning, takes care of his business in the backyard, and then hangs out on the back porch in the sun. He can spend hours just lying there sniffing the wind for the morning rituals of the world around him. He has no obligations and he knows how to really relax in that space. (see above picture)

I need to learn.

Otherwise I'll be spending panicked hours in the bathroom, missing out on a life without obligations.