A Committee of Five

 Yesterday, I had plans.

We'd booked time at the gym. We planned to get to the mall. There were some groceries to be picked up. 

It all came crashing down when I lay down to read for a few minutes in the morning. Suddenly the bed was warm, and outside was cold. Suddenly I relaxed deeply in ways impossible during employment. Suddenly, I was asleep.

Joe popped in and shook me gently. He asked if we should be getting about our day, and in that moment I realized that I was already getting about my day and I asked him to wake me in about half an hours. Two hours later I roused myself from a really restful nap.

I went from bed to chair, wrapped myself in blankets, set the chair to recline, and I snoozed through a movie I had trouble understanding because it was just a bit to the wrong side of artsy. The subtitles blurred and I was off again. Joe knows not to wake me when I'm asleep in my chair, so he simply let me alone.

Finally awake, we had tea and cookies and some companionable time.

We were going to cook.

We had leftovers.

What a joy it is to be in command of your own time. To have schedules be just schedules rather than objectives. To have the fluidity of the moment make a decision that can overturn other decisions, other plans. 

It was never more clear to me.

I don't live in a system.

Where my life belonged to other people and my time was governed by the needs of others. Where choices made on Tuesday were firmly nailed to Friday's door. Where my "now" was never a real possibility anyways. 

I don't live in a system.

Where my refusal is seen as behaviour, where my 'no' becomes 'yes' at the will of another, where there are real and dire, consequences to the choices that I make.

I don't live in a system.

Where the mood of another determines the course of my day. Where the notations made in a book determine the course of my evening. Where the graph determines what choices I am offered.

I don't live in a system 

Where choices are offered, and therefore can be denied. Where I get to do what I want only after I do what you want. Where my dreams are calibrated, then smashed into achievable goals.

No, I don't live in a system.

So I took a nap yesterday and snoozed my way through a day, that wasn't planned, that wasn't written on a list and, that wasn't approved by a committee of five.