The Mythological Morning Routine
Before COVID, when I had a full-time job and the world seemed to be turning at a maniacal pace, we ran our house like an Amtrak train station. I could order hot lunch for my oldest, leaving me to feed him breakfast, make him a snack, and brush his teeth—other than that, I had to only make myself look presentable while my husband and youngest lolled around a bit before pre-school. Max and I flew out of the house like a somewhat well-oiled, if frantic machine. I answered emails at stop-lights, Max chastised me from the backseat, and I rarely lingered past the bell before I darted off to the office. What a strange life in retrospect; now, I wake up to very few “real” emails and a litany of promotional spam. I don’t surreptitiously check for texts in my pocket when I’m supposed to be paying attention to the other important parts of life. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m still addicted to tech, but there’s no flare of cortisol when I push the home screen.) And now, when it comes to the mornings, all bets are off as we try to maximize our minutes in bed. We learned it from the endless months of virtual school in pajamas, when Max carried his bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats to the “Morning Meeting” Zoom happening in his bedroom. Leaving the house—particularly before 9am—feels a bit like a chore.
While I historically didn’t get enough of it, I’ve never been confused about needing a lot of sleep. When I continually dip into the 6’s and even the 7’s, I not only get grumpy, but I tend to compensate with extra coffee, which in turns flares my propensity to hyperventilate. Not the breathing-into-a-paper-bag type of hyperventilation, but the chronic kind, where it feels like you can’t take a full or deep breath without yawning. This in turn creates the feeling of panic. In reality, your lungs are over-full, you have plenty of oxygen, but that’s not how it feels. It’s like living with a partially inflated balloon in your chest. It’s awful and exhausting; a self-perpetuating cycle. To manage this, my morning routine has a lot to do with sticking with some sort of nighttime routine, which effectively involved getting into bed right after the kids so I don’t get sucked into the vortex of Netflix, or the dishwasher. (I’ve also come to discover that I’m a poor sleeper and a mouth breather, which all contribute to my breathing disorder…more on that to come.)
Obviously, I sleep better if I’m not over-caffeinated and I don’t bring a glass of wine to bed with me. But, well, that’s hard. I roll out of the house with Max in some variation of sweats and Patagonia (noting that that was my mother’s uniform in my youth, ahem)—my hair looking like a rogue toupé (see above). I’m dreading losing the mask because it spares me from putting on concealer. The lunches, which I make by hand in the absence of any other option, are a disaster and largely uneaten. We’re all just doing the best we can and there is joy in the sloppiness.
Max and I have a ritual where we stop for coffee and a treat on our way to school. This ritual is really for me because I’m addicted to oat milk lattes because how are they so foamy and delicious? I also like this step because it means that I’m required to put on a bra since I’ll actually have to get out of the car, and this makes me feel like slightly less of a slob. Plus, I know Max eats the treat, which allays some of my anxiety that he is going to go hungry because aforementioned packed lunch doesn’t appeal.
I love this time with Max in the morning. He plies me with questions that I absolutely cannot answer without Google—What’s ulcerative colitis? How much cyanide is in a typical cherry stone? Can you get Salmonella from touching bird poop?—and he entertains me with his newfound fascination with ‘80s music. (It comes for them all.) When I get home from drop-off, sometimes my four-year-old is still sleeping. His preschool starts at 9am and it’s literally 500ft from our house, but he’s been known to sleep through most of it.
Post-goop, I’ve been writing my book, researching my book, prepping for the launch of my podcast this Fall, sitting on a board, and doing some consulting. This sounds like a lot, but most of it is quiet, solo work, and so I find that I still have an odd amount of calls for someone who no longer fully exists in the corporate world. Depending on the insistence of L.A.’s newly surging morning traffic, this means that when I get back, I’m either sliding behind my computer right as a meeting starts, or I have a chance to shower and “dress.” If it’s the former, I throw on a turtleneck sweater and my glasses and try to look like a “writer” in partial chaos; otherwise it’s a button-up and jeans, which I immediately tear off as soon as I’m free. I am not someone who will be burning my yoga pants and Entireworld sweats post-COVID.
I used to wonder how moms who were full-time at home filled their days while kids were at school; I wonder no more. I have no idea where the time goes, but I can promise that you can actually get very, very little done between drop-off and pick-up. I say this as someone who has historically been meticulous about time management, an uber-productive robot if you were to ask anyone on my team. But the hours vanish. There is more coffee to brew, plants to water, books to catalogue and sort, doctor’s appointments to schedule and confirm. Walks—on a good day—to take.
There’s been nothing routine about this year; it’s been rough, certainly, but it’s also been an invitation to re-imagine the rigor with which I ran at least the first parts of my day. I rarely deviated unless I was out of the town (often one or two days a week), or had a work breakfast before the office. And here’s the odd part: Yes, I struggle to get much of anything done in the middle of the day, but I also find that I’m not any less productive than I was when I was helping to run a company. This is odd to me, and I’m still trying to figure it out, since I know that I did “a lot.” I find now, though, that I’m managing to do more. I’m just more disheveled. As the world re-opens, and we reimagine how we work, there are some things I will never do again, like bend my life to fit my career, or forego any extra minutes of sleep.