The past few months have been difficult.

I have done my best to stay upbeat. Freshman year of college, I took Introduction to Psychology and over twenty years later, I still remember reading in my textbook that a smile makes you feel better. I still remember that moment, slouching against a wall in my dormitory, that I smiled experimentally and realized the shift in muscles actually did make me feel a little happier. And since that moment in the hallway of my dormitory, I have found that actions like smiling make me feel better while things like complaining make me feel worse.

Still, sometimes I need to take stock and be realistic about my life. Sometimes, complaining is not actually complaining but being honest with oneself. As much as I would rather focus on the ways that I am blessed, right now I need to acknowledge the challenges of the past few months.

In mid-March, both my kids had a week of spring break. On the day they were supposed to go back to school, Pippa was sick. She had been fighting a fever all of spring break and had already seen the doctor twice. That first Monday after spring break, I planned to take Julian to school and then call Pippa’s doctor.

Life had other plans.

As we drove up the hill toward Julian’s preschool, my phone rang. I answered. It was a preschool teacher. She told me that there was no school that day. This took me a moment to process. I actually wondered if I had somehow gotten confused about when spring break was over, and if the teachers somehow were psychic and knew I was taking Julian to an empty campus… Then the teacher explained a roof repair was not finished, and the director would send more information over email.

Okay. Change of plans. I called the doctor’s office and Julian tagged along to Pippa’s appointment, where we learned poor girl had a sinus infection. I took the kids to our usual pharmacy, but they did not have the medicine we needed, so I had to drag them to another pharmacy. All the time, I was wondering if Pippa would be well enough to celebrate her birthday that coming Saturday (we had already rescheduled her party once.) I remember thinking about all the curveballs of parenthood.

I didn’t realize just how big a curveball was about to be thrown at me.

Long story short, Julian’s preschool was “broken.” The roof had needed repairs over spring break. (Pasadena got a lot of rain in early 2019). The roof repairs dislodged asbestos in the ceiling. The asbestos contaminated the school. The school needed to be closed for asbestos abatement. At first, I hoped the repairs would take a few weeks. Then I hoped for two months. Surely school would reopen for camp!

Three and a half months later, school is still closed. Turns out, asbestos abatement involves more than a snap of the fingers. It actually involves stripping away dry wall, ripping away floors, and sealing everything up with plastic until the school looks a bit like that quarantine scene in E.T. (I am blatantly stealing that last analogy from another parent.) Once abatement is complete (so close, we are so close), the school will need all new floors, ceilings, and walls. We also need to buy/collect all new supplies because we had to throw away almost everything – including the books, toys, art supplies and furniture – that was exposed to contamination. This all takes time.

I have been calling this adventure Asbestos-gate, and for the past several months, I have done my best to stay upbeat and positive. At least the teachers realized the dust and tiles on the floor were a problem! And we were fixing the contamination! And I got extra time with Julian!

But honestly, Abestos-gate has been tough. At first, I thought it was tough because Absestos-gate thrust me into the Vortex of Uncertainty. This whole experience has ripped away a lot of illusions I had about the certainty of my life. I truly thought that when I enrolled Julian in preschool, he would attend for three uninterrupted years, just like his big sister Pippa had. True, we might decide to move and then need to switch preschools but that was something under my family’s control. I took preschool for granted. I assumed it would be there no matter what.

Now I have so much more empathy for people who experience a natural disaster like a hurricane or wildfire. My goodness. It has been difficult to lose our preschool, but that is all we lost. Some people lose everything at once: home; work; school; grocery store; post office; favorite coffee shop; doctor’s office; my god, everything.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable but it is one of the only givens in life. Every day is filled with little uncertainties, from how long the line will be at Starbucks to what sort of mood my kids will be in when they wake up. As preschool undergoes its necessary repairs, I have told myself that the Vortex of Uncertainty is making me a stronger and better person. This is like Boot Camp for Uncertainty. I am being conditioned with extreme uncertainty and at the end of this adventure, I’ll be better equipped to to deal with the daily uncertainties of life. Extra long line at Starbucks? No problem. At least Starbucks is functioning, and not contaminated with Starbucks. Julian wakes up with a fever? No problem. At least he can go to preschool when he feels better. My car battery is dead? Hey, that’s still easier than Asbestos-gate.

I’m glad I have been focusing on the positives, but yesterday, I realized that I have been so focused on the Vortex of Uncertainty, I did not appreciate the havoc that Asbestos-gate has wrecked on my habits. On one level, I knew that Asbestos-gate had interrupted my routines. Duh. But I thought I was just getting some good practice at flexibility. I did not stop and acknowledge just how shocking it can be to have one’s habits up-ended.

Yesterday I started reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. I am only sixty pages in, but I can already tell this book is going to help me make some big life changes.

When I think about habits, I don’t usually get excited. My habits are pretty boring – brushing teeth, getting dressed, putting my iPhone in my tote bag before leaving the house … But the first sixty pages of Atomic Habits have already convinced me that habits are a vital part of my life. Habits are not just the little boring things we do every day. Habits create our identity! Clear says it perfectly: “[T]he process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.”

As he further explains:

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it actually is big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.

James Clear, Atomic Habits at 38.

Asbestos-gate interfered with my habits. I had an entire routine that told me when I would take the kids to school, when I would walk, when I would write, and when I would volunteer in the classroom. Asbestos-gate took that away. I had to completely overhaul my schedule and figure out new ways to get time for exercise and writing.

I knew Absestos-gate had upended my habits, but I didn’t think about how that affected my identity. I am a writer and a mother. But thanks to Asbestos-gate, I lost the routine that gave me time to write every day. That undermined my identity as a writer. Asbestos-gate also interfered with my volunteer work at my kids’ schools. Obviously I could not volunteer at preschool because it was contaminated, but I also had to stop volunteering in Pippa’s classroom because I had a constant three-year-old sidekick. Yes, I still had my babysitter two times each week, but I needed those hours for appointments and writing. So my identity as a stay-at-home mother was also undermined by all the changes in my routine and habits.

I have felt a bit like I was floundering the past few months. Now I realize why: my identity has felt murky and mushy because I have been living without all my routines and habits.

Habits do not just create my identity. They also put things on auto-pilot so my brain does not have to expend too much energy making mundane daily decisions. Before Asbestos-gate, I did not have to think about where or when I was going to walk or write. I had already made those decisions, months ago, when I figured out my routine for the 2018-2019 school year. (Take Julian to preschool. Take Pippa to kindergarten. Take walk in neighborhood. Write at Starbucks.) After Asbestos-gate, I had to figure out my Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays anew every single week. Julian and I had fun, but it was a lot of work scheduling play dates and figuring out adventures that would make us both happy. Plus I had to figure out, every day, when and how I was going to move my body and get 10,000 steps. Losing my habits created more work for my brain. No wonder I have felt some extra brain fog!

I am excited to read Atomic Habits this week and think about the habits I want to cultivate in the 2019-2020 school year. I am excited to get back into a predictable routine. I am excited for new habits that will help me become the person I want to be.