Routine

The thing about a routine is that you don’t realize how dependent on it you are until it’s taken away from you.

But then you move out of the apartment you’ve lived in for a very long time. Perhaps you move only ten blocks north. In New York City, however, that means an entirely different neighborhood.

Perhaps you decide to do some work on your new crib while you’re still living there which, along with the fact that you’ve decided to buy new furniture and not take most of the old stuff, means that you’ve resigned yourself to a few weeks of urban camping.

Then perhaps you spend a weekend in the Hamptons, where the normal lunacy of housemates with stories about waking up in bed with their girlfriends to find tape measures at their sides, international playboys showing you their bar mitzvah pictures, and hikes through nurseries that by night resemble Tolkien lands, ensues.

And you wonder why, upon finally returning to your new apartment, which is still a mess of boxes and paint cans, it is that you can’t remember the last time you slept more than four hours a night.

In life, though, most things do eventually pass, as will this exciting but oh so disorienting period.

Last night, granted with the help of ambien, I got eight hours of sleep.

And today, just as things were starting to feel calm, the elevator I was in on the way to guitar class got stuck. It snapped everyone out of their routine quickly.

“Oh fuck.”

“This has, like, never happened to me before.”

“Happens in this elevator all the time.”

“Jiggle the emergency button.”

Someone did. Within minutes we were again in flight. I arrived in time to get in tune before the first note began.

Eventually, things always do calm down.