Yesterday, I finally had some free time to take care of things I've been neglecting, including Christmas shopping.
Yep, I am feeling just a teeny bit behind this year.
In addition to buying gifts, I had several errands to run and a visit with my mom planned.
As much as I thought I was prepared to leave my house, I discovered that I really wasn't.
Not once, or even twice, but THREE times I had to turn around and go back home because I forgot something.
This is not characteristic of me.
I did have a list. I'm great at writing those.
Too bad that was the first thing I forgot.
Then, it was the coupons for the Hallmark store. Those were worth $20, so the short trip home was worth that.
And finally, it was the pictures of my boys and the holiday card I had set out to take for my mom. I couldn't go visit her without those!
All in all, it was about 20 minutes wasted, and a whole lot of time for me to kick myself for it (and for Jacob to laugh at me from the passenger seat).
I started wondering if I'm slowly losing my mind. It just seems there are way too many things flying around in my head lately.
I like to think that my brain is one of my most powerful assets. What will happen to me when it stops working?
Worst case scenarios began flitting through my head.
I wondered which of my boys would visit me more in the old age home. And how long I would remember who they are...
It ended up being a fairly productive day though and we got through most of the list and had a nice visit with mom.
But it shook me. That feeling of just not being prepared, not having it all together.
I had to sleep on it, and this morning I realized something.
Somewhere in the noise and the chaos of this past year, I've stopped listening to my own advice.
I'm letting life get to me. I'm not pausing enough to think about whether this constant barrage of stuff to do is really important.
I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this.
It's easy to get caught up and forget that there's an order of importance to most things in life.
I tell other people to stop and think whether the issue they are dealing with will matter a year from now. If not, they should try not to stress about it.
But I guess I'm much better at giving advice than taking it.
I have to take a deep breath and focus on putting things in the right order of importance, at home and at work.
I need to do a better job of saying no completely to the things that are on the bottom of the list.
Sometimes that's the hardest - just wiping the least important things away so they aren't even in my line of sight to distract me or make me feel less accomplished.
I talk so much in my blog about how life is imperfect.
At the end of the day, it's not about how many things we do, how many gifts we buy, or even how many times we have to correct our course or circle back.
It's about whether we are truly focusing on what's important in our lives.
For me, it's in this order:
My boys
My health (both physically and emotionally)
My family
My home
My career (the work I do that makes me feel purposeful)
That's it. It's really that simple if you boil it down.
For the last few weeks of 2019, I'm going to re-evaluate how all of this noise fits in my order of importance.
I'm going to take more deep breaths, spend more time with family and level-set before the next year hits.
And the next time I leave home and realize I forgot something, I'm going to ask myself if I really need it.
If the answer is no, I'm going to just keep on driving, moving forward to my destination.
No turning back.
Just don't laugh at me when you see me at the store scratching my head trying to remember what was on that list!