Friday is trash day

I remember when I realized that my marriage was over. One of my first thoughts was ” We can’t get divorced! Friday night is our taco night!” Now obviously I knew that was not a reason to stay together but it felt compelling at the time. Taco night. How can we have our tacos if we are not together?

Familiarity. Familiar experiences. Routines. Rituals. These are things that make us comfortable. And who wants to get rid of comfortable? There are exceptions, of course. Not everything familiar is desirable or comfortable. A man who beats his wife every night has certainly set a pattern, but the wife will hardly find this familiar routine comfortable. For today, I am speaking about familiarity that brings comfort. Sometimes we want to hold on to the comfortable even when, as in the case of my marriage, it was time to let  go. The unknown that loomed in front of me as a 20 something woman was far more frightening than staying where I was, even though at a very deep level I knew it was not going to work.

Fear of the unknown keeps many people from changing. I had never lived alone before and now I had a small child to care for. What was that going to be like? How do I do this? A very good friend of my sister’s told me to open the scary door to the future and jump! I remember keeping that image in my mind for a long time, until I actually did what she said. I survived the jump which allowed me to move forward into an unknown future that felt less and less scary as time went on.

But I digress. The other day driving out of my neighborhood I noticed the trash cans neatly standing in front of everyone’s home, like sentries protecting the residents. I said aloud, “Friday is trash day.” That started me thinking about routines and how comfortable they can become in our lives. Taco nights, gym days, going to church,. Then smaller routines, like how my husband comes upstairs with me every night when I am going to bed. We turn down the bed together then he sets our clock so that it projects onto the ceiling in the right place and turns on the tv so I can watch it for a bit before going to sleep. I am in the bathroom washing up and brushing my teeth. He is not ready to go to bed himself but insists on coming up with me to help me in the process. Before going downstairs he gives me a hug and a quick kiss. This has become very familiar and yes, very comforting. How sad it would be if he were not here anymore and it was time for bed? I suppose I would create a new routine. That’s what we do. We generate new routines to replace the old so we can feel comfortable again. It is even comforting knowing that we have the ability to do that.

But perhaps I am speaking out of turn. Not everyone likes routine. Not everyone enjoys the familiar. These people are more spontaneous in their lives in general. Something I am not but certainly admire in others. Although my guess is that even spontaneous people enjoy familiarity, if only occasionally. Routine leads to familiarity which leads to comfort, generally speaking.  Habits can do the same. I am definitely a creature of habit. Doing things a certain way all the time gives us a sense of control. Growing up with a father who although loving was prone to wild mood swings, often made me feel out of contr0l. My structured lifestyle as an adult has given me the control back that I lost as a child.

I think that structured people such as myself need to feel in control of their lives and find comfort in the habits they form. Spontaneous, fly by the seat of their pants people don’t need that. They go with the flow, they adjust as needed. Experiences such as airplane rides probably don’t frighten them because they don’t need to feel in control. I don’t like flying but will not let that stop me from going somewhere I want to go. In other words, my need for control does not stop me from living my best life. It could but it doesn’t.

For most of us, familiarity makes us comfortable. When two people start dating they don’t really know each other. The longer they stay together the more familiar they become with one another and the more comfortable the relationship becomes. And if it doesn’t work out in the long term, the harder it is to say goodbye, at least for most of us.

Enjoy your routines. Appreciate how they make you feel comfortable. But be flexible and able to bend when life calls for it. Because life will call for it. God bless.