Make Grace the Second Thought?
A commitment to an action plan for life admin.
I was on a walk with our puppy Stella. The sun was setting in multi-colour, there was snow on the ground. It was a beautiful moment.
I’d had a thousand and one thoughts that day. The way we all do.
Asking our brains to process the screens we put in front of them. Decisions need to be made. Time speeds up.
And
then
I realised.
We can s l o w everything down.
In this moment, it’s a choice.
I can’t remember when I hit overwhelm with life admin. Probably when Luna was a newborn and Dave was sick. I’ve never been great at it.
I try to make space and time to understand what the world needs of me from appointments with financial advisors, to smart meter fitting requests, parcels delivered for neighbours, logs running out, oil delivery re-routed, school dinner payments due, school trips and visits and weekend fairs. Birthdays and special trips. Orchestrating a life. I find it to be almost impossible to feel accomplished in any area except work - I’ve always been really good at my job, punctual, organised, plugged in.
We have solicitors forms that arrived two weeks ago that have been signed and ready to drop off for a week.
I’ve cleared the top cupboard for Christmas food to arrive, organised my wardrobe to hide presents. December hits and I’m completely overwhelmed at the month I have to pull off.
I’ve emailed Luna’s school twice to ask about the date for her nativity and a costume I might need to sort. There’s been no reply but they keep emailing me about Christmas tree festivals making me think that’s a thing I need to do.
I don’t want to feel like this but I can’t make my brain process the world differently. Each night before I fall asleep, I put all the thoughts into a beautiful bright pink velvet chest that exists in my mind and send it on wheels down the valley.
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Red Alert and it’s not yet Rudolf
Monday - Life admin will forever feel intrusive yet important. The school sends an email about a different year group’s problem; I read it all, every word and then realise they have also sent me a text message about it. Now, my concentration is broken and Luna is (probably) still fine happily sitting playing with rainbow blocks. I miss her. I didn’t need to upset my nervous system to know that Year One children’s bags are too big for their hooks and hats and gloves strewn across the floor are a health and safety concern.
Tuesday - This week my son brought home a book of adventures his story had been published in.
Because he’s neurodivergent he takes longer with his work and the draft story he brought home was good but needed extra edits and a title. We sat and did this work together and then while he was at school I uploaded the changes to a really annoying online form and paid the fee to buy the anthology. They didn’t publish the edits. In that moment, I was beyond frustrated I’d even tried. The sweetest thing was he didn’t care; the biggest news to him was he was a published author.
Wednesday - As I spiralled, my husband reminded me to see our son and how happy he was and to leave the rest. We’re 4 minutes into the drive and we realise we forgot his forest school kit so in order not to be late, the school run takes me 90 minutes instead of 45. I practise acceptance and listen to a podcast and get my brain in gear for the day.
Thursday - bring chocolate to wear non uniform day at my daughter’s school. Creativity in these tiny societies is boundless. I’m grateful I remembered having set a phone alarm and written it on the calendar. I send chocolate money and halloween eyeballs in a silver box. Luna eats one on the way to the car. I hop on a train North and feel glad no life admin exists there. I barely check my phone all day.
Friday - It’s the last day. We made it. I’m home planning my day. My husband texts saying there is no one at my daughter’s school - it’s closed. They didn’t send an email or a text about this in any sort of time period where I got the memo. I feel shame and the tears fall.
I make grace the second thought and vow to be more on top of things, all the things next week.
And I might?
Claire
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PS - I made a digital gift guide you might like over here;
I hear you on the life admin overwhelm, Claire. Sometimes it feels like running just to stand still. I remember when my son was in his first year at nursery, the instruction from school about the nativity play, was that any animal costume would be fine. The only thing I could persuade him to wear on the day was his monkey onesie. The reverend who was narrating very graciously commented that he was sure he had read somewhere that there are monkeys in the Holy Land. I'm fairly sure he was making that up, but it made me feel a whole lot better, and shut up the six year old know-it-all who had been telling my little one that there are no monkeys in the Christmas story. I'm delighted that your son is thrilled to be a published author - so he should be!
I'm at the other end of school admin - sixth form open evenings, applications with different deadlines, a music teacher who thinks it's fine to post whatsapp messages at 10am on Sunday morning saying the Big Band is needed for something at 5pm the same day, and the terrible realisation that I outsourced the ironing to the local laundrette and the black shirt for Big Band is there until Tuesday.
It sounds as if you’re jumping from one sheet of ice to another trying to avoid falling into the chilly water in between.
It helps to recognise you can’t do it all and to not feel guilty about the things you omit.
On that score I can recommend the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (who is on Substack). Unbelievably that is the average human life span. No wonder we can’t fit in all the “should dos”!