The Devil's in the Details...

Let me contrive to tell all my readers what a dork I am by telling you how I came to school tonight absolutely convinced that I had a test at 8:30 pm. It was written on the front of my folder in blue ink: TEST 3, MONDAY, 8:30 PM, NPB 1001. I spent this Easter weekend slouched over my desk wondering what kind of immoral teacher assigns a test the day after Easter. Only after I went to the physics building and did not see masses of students frantically flipping through their notebooks I realized something was awry. I went back to my car to check the time of the test and noticed underneath the bold informative print of my own hand a little scribble that said "April 19," a little squeak of a message, a sickly looking cipher. I could have kicked myself. The sad (or funny) thing is that I did the same thing last semester in the SAME ROOM, but instead of being early I was an hour too late. I was less than 60 minutes away from an A in physics last semester.

I've never been a detail person. I have a planner, but it always stared at me reminding me of things to do and people to call and lessons to learn and I wanted desperately to throw it in the trash can or out of my car window when I am driving, and so now it rests in the pocket of my car's passenger door, untouched for the past two months. I was afraid of what I might do to it--funny how a brown leather binding can look so menacing, seem so alive. The odd thing is, when I follow my planner and enter things into it and make sure I do A, B, C, and D in that order, my life seems so much easier. Time has been spent wisely. I feel complete. In my bath at the end of the night, I pat myself on the back and take a deep smiling breath as I know I have pleased the insatiable demands of my daybook. I am happy because the planner is happy. I have made the appropriate ritualistic sacrifices and it will not eat me or send down a flood. All things are compartmentalized. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world--at first.

Everything is going well until the planner starts sneaking in essential tasks A, B, C, D, E, F, and G . It's just a few more errands, no big deal. But the planner is hungry. It wants more. The next thing I know, I am in a frenzy trying to complete the entire English alphabet. I become impatient, like my planner, secretly cursing the woman in front of me at Wal-Mart whose debit-card won't work, yelling at Quinn because he is so utterly slow, a sloth in a sack race. I will traffic to clear and people to talk faster. My brain becomes a mess of demonic should'ves and could'ves swirling around in a frothy sea of panic. "I could've driven the other way and saved two whole minutes!" "Hey Stupid, you should've done task H after you did task W, you would have saved half an hour!"

At night, after completing the entire alphabet and five or six counting numbers, I fall alseep in my bath and wake up in cold water. I am not willing to live my life that way, falling asleep only to have alphabetic nightmares of numbers and letters eating me alive, pulling at my skin, stretching me tight across the belly of a drum and pounding as they dance around a fire chanting at me "She must, she must, she must increase or bust."

Yet I always take things to the opposite extreme. Since I went on strike, the disorder has been getting to me. Sure, it has been relaxing lying on the couch, picking wildflowers, singing happy songs in the car on the way to school, completely IGNORING my little planner. But the garbage hasn't gone to the dump in a few weeks and it's really growing into a worrisome mess, I still need to mail about ten letters including a traffic ticket and some bills, I need to balance my checkbook before I run out of money, and the laundry sea is overtaking the islands of living space that Issac and I have eked out of the chaos in the bedroom. I applied late for financial aid and have no real clue when some of my asssignments are due. I haven't collected payment from my boss and I haven't began planning for fall registration.

What is scary is that this doesn't really worry me too much. I've always made it by like this, like a car on ice slipping and spinning into its destination. I know I'll get there eventually. I just wish I could get there well manicured with my planner by my side. I wish I could arrive at the little town called Perfect. I wish me and my planner could be friends, pals, bride and bridegroom.

Maybe the problem is with the planner, not me. Maybe the planner needs to learn that it is not the master of my life, that it is more like a trusted friend. Maybe it needs to stop expecting so much.

I want to accomplish things in my life. I want to be the best at something. I want people to offer me an amazing salary and beg me to work for them. I want to have things to put on my resume--"what makes YOU special, Ms. Ferguson?" I'm sure they won't care about how I had a bloody battle with my little brown planner and came out victorious. They are compatriots of the planner. Revolters like me are dangerous. The rebellion might spread. Before you know it, there will be three-day week-ends and extra holidays, two months of vacation time and children playing in the office.

Sometimes I want so badly to be an automaton, an accomplisher, a producer, a top out-put. The outlets I put my energy into seem to help none but myself and my closest friends and family--it is not marketable. It does not sell. It cannot go on my resume--"has risen to the top of her field. Best friend, daughter, mother, sister in the Southeast region 2003. Voted family member of the year 1999-2004." But these are the things that are important to me.

I'm not saying that these things are not extremely important to other people too. I'm just saying that I'm finding myself stuck in the lovely position where I have not had to deal with these real-world things yet. I don't have to worry about too many bills to pay. I don't have to work a 40 hour week to survive. In so many ways, my days are free to myself. And I've chosen to do things for myself. And nobody else is ever going to care about that. And sometimes it makes me feel like a total bum and loser, and my little planner laughs at me and tells me "ha ha ha! You will never know what it takes to be successful and support yourself if you continue to be so lazy!" To which I respond, "Shut up. Everything will work out fine. I can be 'lazy' if I want to." I'm okay with giving just what it takes to the world to stay alive and clean and well-fed. I am the kind of person who needs a lot of personal time. Call it lazy, call it genius, call it what you will.

I call it sanity.