With my busy life and the unpredictability of each day, having a schedule or ritual may look like a dream. However it is a necessity for every entrepreneur. Wherever I go, I stick to my ritual. It helps me stay focused and remain grounded ensuring the most important things are addressed and never forgotten. Al also has a ritual, being an athlete required it, and joining me in business while overcoming his injuries made it mandatory if he was to get back to a healthy life and pull his weight in the organisation. Occasionally our routine is interrupted and this often means we are not as productive or miss out on things we had planned. However this is rare. I cannot over emphasise how much having a regular schedule, ritual or routine (depending on what word you want to use) has helped me move steadily towards my goals and maintain sanity in this entrepreneurial rollercoaster ...
It is early morning and Elan's second last day at the hospital. Elan is still in bed. The babies are also sleeping in their cotts next to her they had woken up earlier, around 4 am, after being changed and getting comfortable they went back to sleep. This has been everyone’s routine since they were born. But today is slightly different for Elan: she is not just sleeping early morning but is dreaming.
In her dream she has a basket and is looking for fruits. She gets tired and finally sits under a tree. She realises it is a fruit tree when she sees lovely juicy fruits hanging down. The fruits hang closer to her so she can pick them. She happily takes her basket and starts picking them. However when she takes one from the basket to eat, it suddenly turns rotten and ugly and there’s a big fat worm. She screams throws it down then wakes up.
Mich wakes up too. Elan walks over to pull back the curtain bringing in a beautiful ray of sunlight. Elan takes a moment to pray as has been her routine on waking up. Today her heart is burdened with the dream she just had.
Elan, ‘Who is coming Lord? Where is the enemy?’ What did those fruits represent? Hope it had nothing to do with her babies. She goes over to pick Mich, wraps him in his blanket and they go sit at the window on a rocking chair as they watch the day break.
Moments later the door opens and Al walks in. He scans the room for her and seeing her at the window smiles and walks over giving her a warm hug. ‘Hey darling! Already up?’
Tunu wakes up on hearing her father’s voice and gets his attention by whimpering. ‘There’s my girl!’ He goes picks her up, wraps her in a blanket and they join the other two near the window and together, they watch the day break.
This has been their waking up routine for the past two weeks since the kids were born. Mich breast feeds while Al plays with his sister, then they swop with Mich crying for a few minutes before he settles with his dad and Tunu cries before she settles to feed. In about two hours nurse Kate will come pick the babies for breakfast, Al will go to work and Elan have time for herself before going back to sleep or entertaining whichever guest will have called on her. It is simple, it works and will work when she has to go back to work.
The routine has eased the pressure after the first few days of having the children. There is a similar ritual in the evening before Al leaves to go home. But her thoughts come back to those rotten fruits in the dream what do they mean? Should she discuss it with Al? She has never worked a day in a farm so what does that farm, the tree, the basket and those rotten fruits mean? Hopefully nothing that will disturb her peace ....
SEE YOU TOMORROW
