New Routines

Routine is how I pack so many things into my life, and also how I stay sane through it all.  Like everyone else in the world, my beloved routines have been flushed down the toilet.  And, like everyone else in the world, I’m scrambling to make new routines.  In the spirit of documenting the minutiae of my life for my own review decades from now, here is how I am doing.

 

Sleep – Here I’ve gone from bad to slightly worse.  I was already in the habit of waking up at 4 most mornings, although swim mornings I’d cheat a little and sleep in til 4:30, and weekend mornings I could get away with close to 5 since my workout would happen later in the morning (more on this in a sec).  Now it’s up at 4 or else the day is ruined.  Thankfully, I’m now more likely to get one or even two midday naps on the weekend, since there are fewer random activities to throw that schedule off.  Also thankfully, I’m not more likely to get to bed at a decent hour, since there are far fewer (not zero, but far fewer) evening functions that I’m gallivanting around at.

Morning devotions – They still happen, but are shorter and sleepier, for reasons that can be inferred from other categories.

Exercise – Being somewhat of a fitness freak, I’ll bore you with the excruciating details here.  On weekdays, I used to alternate between swimming half the days, and running around, running to the Y, lifting, and running home the other half.  I miss being in the pool, as well as the quiet walks to the Y beforehand (I’d take the bus home, and that was always a mad dash to not miss the one that comes at that hour).  I also miss lifting at the Y, and the camaraderie I had with other early morning gym rats.  But, I still run, and now I can broaden my routes.  Pre-COVID, I basically I had two routes, each 4.25 miles, ending up at the Y, and then another 0.75 miles home after lifting.  So I basically did each route once a week.  Now I have three 5-mile loops: Boardwalk to Rittenhouse Square and back on Walnut, Schuylkill River Trail to Art Museum and back on Walnut, Parkway to Art Museum and back via Spring Garden Bridge.  Even better, I can run each loop in reverse, so really that’s six routes, which means I can go a good two weeks without repeating a route.  I alternate those runs with indoor runs, in which I power through Netflix while on the treadmill.  Which puts me at about 2 hours a week of TV, whereas pre-COVID I could get a good 4-5 hours in because I’d go to multiple Y’s on the weekend and run/walk/bike while watching.  Finally, at least twice a week I ride my bike, one is a 10-mile loop down South Street and along the Delaware and back on Spring Garden, and one is the Loop (14 miles through Art Museum, up Kelly Drive, across Falls Bridge, and back on West River). 

Food – Breakfasts and dinners are unchanged.  Lunch I used to pack but often had at least a couple days a week of business lunches.  Now it’s turkey sandwiches and PBJ every day without fail.  Weekends are also largely unchanged, in terms of making breakfast for the kids in the morning and having rare all-family gatherings at dinner.  Although I will say that while we were already in the habit of ordering out once a week, we’ve diversified where we get our food in order to spread out the financial boost to different establishments in the neighborhood.  (There are so many that we will have long solved COVID before we run out of options!).

Commute – This is going to sound weird, but I really miss the rhythm of riding SEPTA in the morning.  Talk about a routine.  The walk to Asher’s preschool with Amy, walking to 40^th Street Station, the 6-minute ride into town, even the goodbye kiss when we part ways at 15^th.  And then in the evening, the mad dash back onto the subway, playing a game or two of Scrabble, and walking through the neighborhood once I get off at 46^th.  These are the things that used to demarcate my day, to tell my body I was transitioning into and out of work mode.  Now I drive Asher to his daycare, bike in the back, and pedal home.  It is significantly downhill that way, the morning air is crisp, traffic is light, my energy is at an all-time high, and the promise of the day is laid out before me.  Alas, what goes down must come up, and when I return my bike in the late afternoon, I am tired, traffic means I have to be more vigilant, and the hills leave my thighs burning and my lungs spent.  Furthermore, this pick-up task isn’t the end of my work day, because once Asher and I are home I still have at least an hour more to do, and thus have to fob him off to Aaron and Jada to keep him busy while I finish my workday.  The end of my work and the start of dinner isn’t very well demarcated, since it is usually announced by Asher’s random arrival into my work space with cries of his belly rumbling.  So much for having a little bit of a moment to transition myself from my work world to our kitchen table.  I know a ton of people are finding a huge silver lining in not having to deal with their soul-crushing commutes during this remote work era, but I’m certainly not one of them.

Kids – The older kids’ school days and extra-curricular activities provided an entrée for conversation.   Of course, now those are out, replaced by a more clinical review of classes and assignments (for which I am receiving daily updates from their schools).  Besides these daily rhythms, I don’t get much time with Aaron and Jada, so I try to supplement with day-long outings where, one-on-one or one-on-two, we can do something fun and spend extended time together in the process.  Alas, even during this short pandemic season, one-on-one trips I’d planned months ago (to New York with Aaron, to DC with Jada) have been scuttled.  As for Asher, weekdays are not much different now, but weekends are markedly different.  Here I miss the local Y being open the most, is not for my use of the facilities as much as my ability to bring Asher and put him in their Kid Watch.  Voila, I get a couple of hours to work out and watch TV, and Asher gets to play with new friends.  Even the car rides were a cherished part of our weekend rhythms, singing along to the radio or eating snacks (or, when Amy came with us, stopping for coffee).  Instead, weekends are composed of very long periods of playing Nerf guns, building forts out of couch cushions and blankets, and watching TV, mercifully broken up by an early afternoon nap (I shudder at the likelihood that Asher will soon grow out of needing a midday nap).  When he announces his arrival into every new day – usually by him yelling “Daddy!” and/or “I’m hungry!” – I mutter to myself, “only 14 hours until I get to put him to bed and have a moment to myself.”  For this parent, as the old saying goes, the years may be short but the days are quite long.