Craving Patterns

I recently came to a staggering realization that may explain why I am attracted to patterns and the idea of repetition and continuity: my life is severely lacking patterns and continuity.

The past three months have included: buying a house, moving into said house, painting, furnishing, and decorating said money pit house, teaching four classes {what genius ever agreed to that?}, dealing with multiple baby-sitting dilemmas, being rescued from those dilemmas by some stellar friends and family members, designing and printing my beautiful Honey Boo Boo's wedding invitations, reasoning with a toddler-turned-terrible-two-er, celebrating my H.B.B.'s wedding, learning to function with a mommy-obsessed monkey attached to my limbs, basically only seeing my husband on weekends {and sometimes not even then}, all whilst dealing with the beautiful disaster that is the first trimester of pregnancy.

This post is not meant to complain. I know we will look back at Fall 2012 as a time of huge transformations, most of them good. However, my tolerance for chaos has its boundaries and I think I am quickly approaching my limit. I am grasping desperately for any semblance of order in our schedule, but I keep coming up short. Every day is different. Every week is different. That's a hard thing to get used to {because getting used to something means that it's the same, right? hmm}.

If there is one thing I should have learned by now, it's that this feeling of helplessness is temporary. Having a sense of "control" has always been important for me and, in moments I'm really struggling, I often have to remind myself that I have the ability to control small aspects of my day. I can establish small patterns, even if it means reading a chapter in my book every night before I pass out {because "falling asleep" doesn't do what I do justice}, or writing a blog entry every Friday afternoon, or making sure that Saturday mornings are spent eating breakfast with my two favorite people. These might be the only patterns my life can handle right now, and I think that's fine for now. Yeah, I think I'll decide to be fine with that.