Month: February 2026

Schedules, rhythms, and writing

/ edebock / 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about schedules and rhythms since reading this post and watching this video earlier in the week. A schedule, as you’re already no doubt aware, is a detailed, clock and calendar-based plan with set times for tasks, activities, and events. A rhythm, on the other hand, is more flexible and better accommodates spontaneity while still maintaining some structure and routine. 

When I was teaching school, my life was very scheduled. Days were ruled by the clock and the bell. One of the greatest joys of retirement has been more freedom and flexibility. I attend church at the same time every Sunday morning and during the winter months I lead a ladies Bible study at 10 o’clock on Tuesday mornings and I bowl at 9:30 AM on Wednesdays. Other than that, unless I have a medical appointment, I’m not tied to a schedule. There is, however, a rhythm to my days.

I usually get up sometime between 7:00 and 8:00. Five days a week, from Monday to Friday, I spend about 20 minutes exercising before I leave the bedroom. Once I’m dressed for the day, I move to my den where I spend some time in prayer. Next, it’s time for breakfast and then I sit down at my computer with a cup of green tea. I read and respond to emails and messages, then read the news. I’m not really a morning person, but this rhythm or routine allows me to move into my day with ease. As I often tell hubby, mornings are meant to be approached gradually! 

Although there’s less structure to the rest of my day, I usually do laundry on Tuesdays and Fridays and edit Kiva loans on Thursday mornings. We generally eat lunch between noon and 1:00 and I like to have supper on the table not later than 6:30. 

I’ve learned that there’s one thing I can’t schedule or plan with any predictability and that’s writing. For some time now, I’ve been trying to publish a blog post every Friday. Even though those posts are often written earlier in the week, I’m still finding that that feels too rigid and doesn’t always work for me. I don’t want to simply write and publish because it’s on my schedule or something that I feel I have to do. Instead, I want to write when I have something worth saying. That might be once a week, but sometimes it’s more often and sometimes less.

When I introduced my weekly Fashion Friday feature in March 2016, I was looking for a way to ensure that I wrote and published something on a regular basis, especially during those times when there wasn’t a lot else going on to write about. I’m actually amazed that it went on for as long as it did before I started to run out of ideas! Over the years, the fashion blogs that I’ve followed have either fizzled out or gone commercial, becoming what I call shopping blogs, basically advertising arms for the companies that sponsor them. Most of the bloggers that I continue to follow have a wider focus. Fashion is just one of the topics that they write about and that’s what I visualize for the future of Following Augustine. I plan to continue blogging indefinitely and I hope to include a fashion post from time to time, but I’m no longer going to try to schedule a post every Friday. I need to allow myself more flexibility. 

If you aren’t already a subscriber and want to ensure that you continue to see my posts, simply enter your email in the space provided in the column on the right and click on “Sign me up!” You will receive an email each time a new post is published. Please be assured that WordPress has a strict privacy policy and does not sell, rent, or trade personal information, including email addresses, to third parties for marketing purposes.

I’m curious about your thoughts about schedules and rhythms. Is your life more schedule oriented or does the idea of living by rhythm appeal to you? Please let me know in the comment section. 

 

 

Why Me? Coping with cancer and survivor’s guilt

/ edebock / 8 Comments

This has been a very hard week.

I think it’s common for people to ask “Why me?” when they’re diagnosed with cancer or another life threatening illness, but that wasn’t my experience. In fact, I clearly remember thinking, “Why not me?” After all, nearly 2 in 5 Canadians are expected to develop cancer at some point in their lives. Why wouldn’t I be one of them?

There are times though when I do ask “Why me?” When I walk into the cancer clinic for an appointment and see patients who are so much worse off than I am, I can’t help wondering why I’ve been so fortunate and they haven’t. Surviving longer, having an easier time with treatments, and/or experiencing fewer side effects often cause cancer patients like me to experience what’s known as survivor’s guilt. This is a complex emotional response where survivors feel guilty, sad or unworthy for living and recovering while others don’t.

Once again, this week has left me asking, “Why me?” In a period of less than 48 hours, we lost two very special people to cancer. One, our son-in-law’s younger sister, was a woman in her 40s whose youngest child is still in high school. The second was a very dear friend who we first met in 2013 when we were teaching English in China and her husband was on staff with us. As couples, we did many things together, even traveling and climbing the Great Wall together. Since they retired to Mexico several years ago, we’ve visited them several times and had many more interesting adventures together. Why is it that, almost 12 and a half years after being diagnosed with an incurable cancer, I continue to live a fairly normal and productive life while both these women suffered much more than I have and are gone less than a year after diagnosis? Logically, I know that their cancers were more aggressive than mine, but I can’t help asking why I’m still here and they are not.

There are, of course, no answers to these questions.  I can only conclude that God isn’t finished with me yet and determine to make good use of whatever time I have left. In fact, that’s one of the recommended ways of dealing with survivor’s guilt and I suspect it’s the reason that I’ve felt driven these past few years to do many of the things I do. Things like editing loan descriptions for Kiva, a nonprofit organization that facilitates microloans to help alleviate poverty in underprivileged areas of the world. Things like writing letters for a Christian prison ministry and helping lead a provincial patient support group. These are things that help me find purpose and meaning in survival.

I also know that guilt, including survivor’s guilt, is one of the common stages of grieving. As I grieve the losses that we’ve experienced this week, I know that it’s normal for me to be feeling this way right now and so I acknowledge the feeling and don’t despair.