I put things off. I procrastinate. I avoid. These are issues I've long dealt with, and to be honest, have no idea why they developed into the problem that they have. I don't remember any adult in my life modeling these behaviors, but I certainly picked it up somewhere.
To be honest, the procrastination thing I've worked out into a sort of system. In fact, given the opportunity, I generally do better on some things with the adrenaline of having put something off until the last minute. Example- I write better under pressure. Far better. Think about something to long and it turns into the usual mush you find on this blog. Sorry about that.
But seriously, no matter how I frame it, it doesn't feel good. It feels really terrible, to be honest. Haunted by too many duties left unattended to will keep a person awake at night, and it has, far too often. The bags under my eyes will sometimes attest to that fact, and the thing is, I know a better way. It's just that I also know how to avoid the knowing-of-the-better-way a bit more intimately, so even the knowing is avoided.
I was thinking about all of this while cleaning out my bathroom this morning, thinking back to the times when I felt like I had finally gained some control and clarity over my life. I believe the first time I felt like I wasn't just riding some proverbial wave, against my will, but doing it anyway was when I was somewhere around 24. I lived in a little apartment across the street from the college I'd dropped out of. The thing with this apartment was that it already smelled like cat pee, so the landlord didn't much mind my two little kitties coming along on the lease. Plus, I promised I would help eradicate that problem- and I did. Moving into that apartment was odd, because suddenly- I had furniture. I also had a multitude of boxes containing odds and ends, old assignments, workbooks from first grade, and I thought: I am turning into my parents. This must stop. Now.
Instead, the boxes were shoved into the attic storage space and forgotten about until a bat dropped down during a momentary winter awakening- no doubt worried about some untended duty- and nearly was eaten alive by Hobbes, no longer a dainty little kitty. Sometime during the next 24 hours, between rescuing the bat with an old sweater, admiring it's devilishly sharp teeth on the way down the stairs and out of the apartment, placing it gingerly in a pile of leaves in the corner of the outer stairway to our laundry room, calling wildlife rescue, begging them to come out, waiting for them to do so, watching the bat climb up on a stick they placed in front of it- sometime in all of that, I looked at my attic and started wondering how many dead bats were mingled in with the old workbooks, discarded clothing, plastic caboodle, and used pencils that were the normal inhabitants of that space.
I started throwing stuff away. Even though I felt guilty, and wondered how I would feel if I were the three inch pencil, the half-used math book.
Maybe it had something to do with being an only child and attributing intelligence and feelings to objects that I spent a lot of time with, because I was alone too much. I didn't have siblings to fight with, so I played with crayons and married colors to each other. The yellow and red absolutely must be in the same corner of the crayon box with one another.
And the green and blue.
And the white and pink.
Lately, I have been trying to balance work and the life thing and I'm failing miserably. This has something to do with failed organization on my part- again- but on that of nearly everyone else, too. I find myself manically checking my phone for emails and texts, for the newest Instagram post, just to drug myself from the guilt of the dinners unplanned and all the laundry.
I used to like laundry. I don't like it anymore. It's needy and insistent and I'm tired.
There are about a million things I want to do. They always get put off for chores and sometimes just because I'm in the habit of drowning sorrows in procrastination and it's many devices. And also because I'm waiting for things to happen for me, rather than making them happen for me- and for everybody else. I'm in the waiting place.
The Waiting Place
by Dr. Seuss
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
Excerpt from Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss
