A change in routine doesn’t come easy to me, but sometimes it’s necessary. I’ve been having trouble finding parking near the post office where I go on my morning errands. I refuse to park in the postage stamp-sized lot at the office itself, but it’s located on a cul-de-sac with spaces on both sides of the street. It’s just that lately all those spaces have been filled whenever I go. Sometimes I would even park at the market a few blocks away and walk to the post office.

That’s what I would have done yesterday, in fact, if it hadn’t been raining so hard. Instead, I gave up and turned around and came back home without even picking up my mail. That can’t happen two days in a row, so I knew I’d have to find a way to get to the post office today. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining, so I could have parked at the market and walked. Also fortunately, that turned out not to be necessary.

One day last week, due to circumstances I didn’t have the strength or will to control, I was forced to wait until after noon to go to the post office. (If you’re guessing the Boss had me doing busywork all morning, you’d be right.) For some reason, there were open parking spaces all along that street at about 12:30 pm. I don’t like to drive in town after noon because the traffic gets so much heavier, but now I’m at the point where I’ll give up driving in light traffic in exchange for being able to get to the actual destination and park there.

So today I did the same thing on purpose. I ran my errands at 12:30 pm instead of 11:00 am, and something tells me that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. When I have more extensive errands to do, I might still leave early, but I’ll just do them in a different order, so that I can get to the post office when (apparently) all the other people who work on that street leave for lunch. I don’t like changes in routine, but I’m willing to get used to a new routine when I have to.