My People And Your People: Scheduling

Schedules are funny thing; you hardly ever think about them, take the time to realize your on a schedule. But we are. We operate, not in the banal and mundane effects of adhering to a schedule, out of a routine of which we are mainly unawares. Meals, bathroom breaks, snacks, T.V., commutes, events: they all go according to set times and dates; and so go our own lives. I suppose I always, somewhere, recognized this truism; but it never affected me until this month.

Out of the graciousness of my heart I agreed to shift my work schedule three days a week. Don't see me as too altruistic however when I tell you that the shift allows me to train on directing higher profile things that inevitably give me a greater and newer skill set. Still, I'm working nights for three days. In doing this, I miss my most coveted time with my family.

I suppose I never realized it. How much dinners and baths and story time and the house silences at bedtime really means to me. How special and crucial it is to my makeup. How apart of my daily schedule it is. But for three days a week I miss out on that.

However, I do get the ever-fantastic mornings with Isaac: where he is arguably at his best and funniest and most energetic. Where the car-rides, shopping trips, babysitters, other people, phone calls and meals have not gotten in the way. When he has awoken from whatever fantastic dream danced through his head with laughter and excitement: "It's a new day, Daddy! Good Morning!" That's what it feels like he says to me while he is shaking his crib as I enter the room while the sleep shakes from his eyes. And then he sits down and laughs as I go to pull him from his bed. Just laughs, giggles and smiles. Looks up at me with excitement. This is how we begin the day.

And when I go to work, I look forward to the mornings. But I miss the evenings too. The incessant water-splashing that soaks us; the running around from one activity to another to stave off sleep; the talking and telling us about his day in a language that is so clear to him.

So this schedule goes for a month. And then I will miss the mornings again.

But life, no matter the schedule, is never routine. This I have loved most of all. Despite how routine we need to make things for Isaac and our benefits; how things need to be set in schedules with times and places and calculations. It is in this, this management of life, that the most delightful freedom occurs. Call it a paradox, but it remains. The trick, talent, necessity, I suppose, is to see not the time, but the Time.

And it will make all the difference.