"What's a typical day for you?"
The monotony of no routine.
Hello! I’m writing from LA, where I will be performing at the Elysian Theater on January 25th. You can get tickets here!
It’s 9:12 am as a write this (it was actually 9:11 when I checked the time but I waited for it to turn 9:12 because, well, you know).
I woke up this morning for the last time at 8:06 am. What I mean by this is that 8:06 was the final time I woke up before getting out of bed, since I often wake up constantly throughout the night into the early morning. Or it could mean today is the day I die. But hopefully not because that would really throw a wrench into my daily routine. At least let me have my oat matcha first!!!
But in all honesty, dying can’t interrupt my daily routine because I don’t have a daily routine. And I mean it. I don’t have one, or anything close to one.
I’d love to say that I’m writing this at 9:12 am because I write every day between 9 and 11 am (oh god sorry!) and that it’s because of this and other daily rituals like running, meditating, and preparing various wellness smoothies that I find peace and stability and achieve all my goals.
But if I said that, it would be a LIE. Because every day in my recent memory is just mildly panicked meandering through an overflowing mental to-do list.
Now, before I go further, two points:
I do generally get done what I need to get done with a combination of my memory, scrawled out to-do lists, and the Fear of Death on my shoulder like a little buddy saying stuff like “Sure, procrastinate, go ahead! I don’t care what you do as long as you remain afraid. Because remember, you will die and you are in your 30’s and you haven’t achieved any sort of lasting success yet.” All that to say, I’m a pretty productive person, but miserably so.
This is not an essay about consumerism disguised as “routine” or “self-care.” I don’t want a multi-step skin care routine or a trendy workout class and even if I did (which I don’t) I wouldn’t want to share it on social media or with anyone. Instead I’d slather on serums and say namaste in secret and with shame (though I would feel a certain triumph if I could manage to do these things at the same time each day, which brings me back to the struggle):
As someone who occasionally gets interviewed (mostly due to a compelling backstory that makes for a good headline and less because I’m some sort of big success), there are a couple questions I dread. One, “who are your greatest comedic influences?” because they’re all cancelled now, and two, “what’s a typical day for you?”
This second question always makes the world around me go quiet.
What is a typical day for me?
A lot of days I’m traveling for my job as a stand-up comedian, and when I’m on the road I go into “survival mode” and all bets are off.
But lately when I’m not traveling, it feels like I’m on the road even in my own apartment. I don’t have a set schedule for anything.
Now, I could definitely benefit from a clearer schedule for my work-related obligations. I’d be a bit more productive, sure. But as I pointed out earlier, I’m already a pretty productive person, and I detest this quest in our society to “optimize.” I don’t really care if I get 4 percent more done (a made up number that isn’t 9 or 11!) in my day because of some new journaling method. I really don’t. We all die someday.
What I do care about is feeling happy, or, more realistically, feeling okay day-to-day. And I often don’t feel okay (and it’s okay not to feel okay, and I’m okay in a very general way so Mom if you’re reading this please don’t worry!).
As I notice my feeling of not-okayness, I naturally try to problem-solve. Why don’t I feel okay?
Okay, I’m anxious, my heart is racing, but I also feel tired like I couldn’t bear to go outside right now or even get up off the couch. I can’t stop checking my phone, and when I put it down I immediately think of something else I should check or look up on my phone and now I’m scrolling again and oh! So-and-so just emailed me I need to send them that invoice okay let me do that okay I’m hungry did I eat breakfast? No, but now it’s 11:30 am and I may as well wait for lunch and oh now it’s noon and I should post something to Instagram to keep building the following so more people buy tickets to my shows and oh now it’s 2 pm what have I been doing did I shower? My whole life is passing me by. I better write some more jokes and oh now it’s 6 pm time to head out to do a show!
This rambling may seem like an indictment of “hustle culture,” but that’s not what I’m interested in here. After all, the toxicity of hustle culture can tarnish even the most routiney of Rountiney McRoutinersons.
What I do notice in this haphazard recreation of my stream of consciousness is that something is missing:
Rituals.
Every morning, my partner gets out of bed, immediately showers and then immediately makes coffee. It’s simple and he does it every single day.
I don’t have a caffeine addiction (I’ve been trying to develop one for years just to have something to be tethered to in this life, but my stomach is too sensitive) and I hesitate to shower in the morning in case I decide to work out later (which I never decide to do and just end up showering sometime later in the day).
Ironically, not having a routine has become my routine. I feel the same unpleasant feelings, at around the same time each day. Miserable monotony.
I’ve made countless attempts over the years to settle into a routine and have always failed. And maybe it’s because I’ve never actually wanted one. After all, the career choices I’ve made have ensured a life that is routine-resistant — I’m constantly traveling and needing to do things at different times each day. And maybe it’s a lack of routine that has kept me open to changing directions in my life when one thing wasn’t working. But this openness comes at a cost.
Everything involves some sort of sacrifice — perhaps mine is the comfort and safety of a routine, and maybe that’s fine. Maybe reminding myself of this is all it takes to feel okay.
I’m on tour! I’m coming to the following cities:
Los Angeles, CA 1/25
Bay Shore, NY 1/27
Hartford, CT 2/9 + 2/10
Ann Arbor, MI 2/14 - 2/17
Louisville, KY 3/1 + 3/2
Alameda, CA 3/8 + 3/9
Wilkes-Barre, PA 3/ 15 + 3/16
Vienna, VA 4/26 + 4/27
NYC 5/2
Seattle, WA 5/31
All tickets at isabelhagen.com.
More cities TBA soon so subscribe to this mailing list to know where and when!
As a routine-less thirty something creative (and fellow violist! coincidentally), this was such a reassuring read. Thank you for highlighting that it’s just fine not to follow the norms of the routineys 😁 (even if sometimes I wish were one of them)