A World without Content

Content. What is it and how can it matter in my daily life? Another way to think about content is what something is composed of, the subject matter or text. The story of our every day life basically…

I used to wake up in a hurry. I would wake up, grab my phone and check my calendar. My day was typical. In no particular order there is always the something that happens. You wake-up, check the calendar, ready the children, work, fix dinner and sleep. It was typical but scheduled. There are so many days I wished for “time off” or a day “with nothing to do”. I never imagined what I would do if I actually did have that time. Oh sure, I planned vacations for time off, errands to do or even time to watch a show. We are so busy that thinking about time off from the daily schedule seemed like a dreamy thing. Now that I have a disability there is no way I can schedule my life. I no longer have a day with nothing to do but so much that feels undone. In my current situation I don’t have to wake up at a set time unless I have an appointment. The children are grown and in their own homes or at college. Dinner is according to what happens to be in the fridge or even if I’m feeling well enough to eat. Sleep even has it’s own timeline and it is dependent completely on how my health is doing that week, day or hour.

A daily schedule, in a way, creates a timeline of the content we are living in our lives. Our memories in life are based on time. For example, we look back to a memory we have and can say “I did this about the time I started that job,” setting a mark in time for you. When there is no longer marked time every day, things slip farther away. Living with chronic pain, fatigue or disability not only changes what you can do but even when you can do it. Not being able to set a daily schedule actually effects how we look back at the things we did in life, or what content our lives held. I never realized I was a person that lived happier with a schedule because I was too busy to notice it. Now that my life has slowed down and I can’t schedule anything I feel like I am losing out on so many things. I’ve lost my marker of time.

I think it has become increasingly important to me to set a schedule even if I can’t keep to it every day. I can’t look at it as a failure that I was not able to keep that appointment or make that event because I wasn’t well that day. Having events scheduled creates that mark in time even if it doesn’t happen for a reason. I now schedule myself to wake up at a specific time every day, time to lay down at night and try to have at least one activity specific to the days of the week. If I can’t make it at least I can see that I did have content, it just didn’t turn out the way it was scheduled.