On Scheduling Love
Right now, love looks like…
Scheduling.
Unsexy, unglamorous scheduling.
Think beyond penciling in appointments. It’s not just the meetings that we schedule these days. It’s the little things.
“Steak dinner.”
I look ahead at the weather this week and pencil in “Go for a drive” on Tuesday between meetings.
“Movie and pizza night with the kids.” the pencil breaks as I cross my “t” and I sigh and hunt for another one.
“ASDA grocery delivery. Don’t forget to buy flour. And salt.”
“2:30 nap time/relax time (for me)”
Often, the little things we schedule in don’t always work out. The drive gets canceled because it starts raining and at that point, it’s easier to turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse instead as I nurse the baby to sleep on the couch.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m going out for visits this afternoon.” says my husband, the church worker, when people call and need ministering.
Or, “I had a 30 minute meeting just pop up.” says I, between juggling homeschooling, meals, and a baby.
But these days, love looks like scheduling.
Because without our schedules, it’s harder to love.
Not to say it’s impossible. I’m always going to wake up and choose to love Aaron. Every day. Even when the baby has kept us up from 2-4 am and the toddler climbs into bed at 5:38 asking for cereal for breakfast.
But when you’re upset that his schedule overlaps yours, when you’re tired because the time was mismanaged because of necessary, but frustrating items, when you’re grumpy because you needed a night off of cooking this week, but pizza night wasn’t scheduled in so the wrong supper gets prepared, it gets harder to love. When your plans go awry, that well of frustration bubbles up, and it’s easy to snap and be frustrated. Frustration turns to resentment, and suddenly, it’s easier to lean into a cycle of annoyance and constantly being peeved.
Right now, love looks like scheduling. On Monday, I scheduled in a drive so we could go to a nearby village to pick up scallops from the fishmongers then steaks from the butcher. Both were closed. Scratch, scratch goes the pencil on my schedule.
A funeral on Thursday, planning ahead for communion next month. Out comes the planner and scribbling away I go.
Maybe it’s because we’re knee deep in 3 kids, 2 work from home jobs, 1 ministry, homeschooling, regular household chores, exercise, the list goes on.
For years I struggled with scheduling. Sure the big things were scheduled in. I’d plan ahead, I had a great 5 year plan but then things basically blew up.
Covid.
Loss of a lifetime dream of his career.
New career at 32.
A third baby.
An opportunity for ministry.
Not all of these were bad changes. In them, we could see the hand of God orchestrating events, even if we didn’t understand why, but with these changes we needed to reevaluate our relationship with each other.
My love language is quality time. His is physical touch. Neither one of those love languages are compatible without scheduling. If our love languages were words of affirmation and receiving gifts, I’d probably be typing out a very different post on writing love letters and getting flowers. But, that’s not who we are.
When his career changed, I cheered him on. But I also started scheduling his meetings. Now he has an assistant (hey, Stephanie!) who can do that, but at the beginning of every day or often the night before, we sit down and plan out our schedules.
It usually starts with, “I have a meeting at 8:45 on Monday morning. Will that conflict with you leaving for church?”
And ends with, “So I’m thinking about pasta for supper, but I have a meeting at 7:30.” (Kids love pasta. We eat lots of pasta. Probably too much pasta.)
For us, right now, love looks like scheduling.
For us, we schedule so we can ensure we can spend time with one another. We schedule so we can spend time with our kids.
“if you keep interrupting your evening to check and respond to e-mail, or put aside a few hours after dinner to catch up on an approaching deadline, you’re robbing your directed attention centers of the uninterrupted rest they need for restoration. Even if these work dashes consume only a small amount of time, they prevent you from reaching the levels of deeper relaxation in which attention restoration can occur. Only the confidence that you’re done with work until the next day can convince your brain to downshift to the level where it can begin to recharge for the next day to follow. Put another way, trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day enough that you end up getting less done than if you had instead respected a shutdown.” - Cal Newport in Deep Work
And ironically, on a week when I’ve created a blogpost about this novel love we’ve found and implemented, it would also be the week that our scheduling falls to pieces and I find myself cooking, working, and drinking a day’s worth of water at 6pm. It’s the day I woke up early to work, but so did the rest of the house. The day that I crammed 12 hours of work into 6, home schooled, cooked meals (why do people want to eat all the time?), handled late naps, the list goes on.
Extra work happens and I spend double the time doing work than I originally planned.
Church events happen.
Head colds happen.
Life happens.
But our love happened. Even during the meltdowns and the 500th episode of Disney +. Even when the scheduling doesn’t.
Love looks like scheduling some days. But some days, love looks like throwing the schedule out the window and planning on picking it up tomorrow.
So, maybe love looks like scheduling and flexibility?
Whatever it looks like, I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for my husband and I’m grateful for grace getting me through each day.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Love Looks Like".