Where everyone knows your name

I've been redefining my schedule. With kids now fully into the back to school routine, and Dan no longer working at home, I've found myself with some very quiet mornings and a chance to redefine how I approach my day.

What is surprising is just how hard change can be, even for someone like myself who often gets a bit antsy when too many things stay the same for too long. I'm always thinking about painting a room, moving things in my garden, changing things up. Such is the blessing -- and curse -- of being an INTJ..our mantra is, "things can always be better".

I use to laugh at my grandparents when they would take trips. They'd pack up and make a dash for the door only to rush back home so that they could be home before nightfall, so that they could be in their own home. "Why?' I would ask myself. "Why would it be so important just to get back to the same old thing?"

I'm beginning to understand. I find myself having to work hard to find new places to have lunch with new friends and seek out new places to write during my morning and afternoon time that I have now set aside for writing. (Nestled firmly into the routines of work, rest assured.)

Yesterday I drove across town looking for some new stomping grounds. I guess I'm searching for that place that is familar yet different enough each day. I was searching for a different palette, I think, from the same-ness that seems to be rampant in my small corner of the world. The same bland taste of lilly-white-same-ness in the homogeneous white Midwestern part of the world. I feel like I'm drinking flat cola and munching on stale chips. Practically the same, but not altogether pleasing either.

And yet as I settled into my morning cup of coffee at a "new" location, I yearned for the old. The predictability, the sameness, the meager friendliness of the staff at my "home" coffeeshop. Benign neglect is sometimes preferred over outright rudeness.

I strolled some new locations, meeting some new people even running into some old friends. It was all the same and all different and I felt off center, out of balance, out of sync. I couldn't wait to arrive back home in my dishelved office with phone calls to return, tasks to do.

So today, I'm going to try it again. I'm going to force myself to continue finding a new "routine" that will be both stimulating and challenging. The very reason that it is hard prods me on to do it again until it isn't so hard the next time. I don't know where I'm going to go yet. Maybe I won't until I get there.

I know that I'm just too young to be so set in my ways.