Procrastination, Thy Name is Me

Somewhere, deep inside my brain, there is a mighty struggle going on. No, it's not the age-old battle between good and evil (although that was a great television show - all six episodes of it), nor is it one of right and wrong, lies vs truth, or even should I salt or sugar my tomatoes.

It has to do with my compelling need to be at least 15 minutes early for any event from doctors appointments to family get togethers (much earlier if it is a public event such as a concert , wedding/funeral, or sporting event), vs my complete tendency towards procrastination. Consequently I am my own push me pull you.

Before I retired, it manifested itself into my morning schedule. We had flex-time, wherein we were allowed to alter our start-time anywhere between six and 9:30 am. Obviously, the earlier you started, the earlier you went home, and for me, work started at 6am, so in the early days, the mister could get the kid off to school, and I could be there when he got home. It was a 35-40 minute drive, meaning I should leave home at 5:15, earlier if I wanted to park closer than 3/4 of a football field away (which makes a huge difference when the wind chill is -25F in the morning or the afternoon heat index is +112F.) Consequently, my original wake up time was 4am and my goal was to leave home by 4:50am, arriving at work around 5:30, securing the closest non-handicapped spot (still a miserable 50 yards from the door), and as a bonus, avoiding nearly all traffic along the way. My get-there-early DNA was pleased...maybe even smug.

The older I got, the more my procrastination tendencies conflicted with my get-there-early DNA and by the time retirement was near, my morning had altered to feed the horrid inner conflict. I showered, laid out clothing, and packed both breakfast and lunch the night before. I reset the alarm for 4:30, brushed my teeth, then dressed, did hair and minimal makeup, grabbed my lunch box and was out the door in 20-25 minutes.

Those were the days I went to the office.  Somewhere in there, part time tele-work was instituted and I took full advantage of work at home days. Unfortunately, on those days, procrastination took my brain hostage, as my alarm was reset for 9:15am (the kid was in middle or high school by then - certainly old enough to fend for himself so mom could get an additional 5 hours of sleep), and I, in robe and slippers, stumbled bleary-eyed, down the hall, logging onto the office website just in the nick of time. It didn't help that I had a min-fridge and coffee machine in the home office, so all I had to do was reach behind me to get juice, cheese, or put a pod in the coffee machine. I cannot begin tell you what having the two such diverse wake up times on alternating days can do to a person's soul. It was not pretty, and neither was I.

Two and a half years ago, I retired and made a list of all those get-there-early type things I never had time for - unfinished needlework from a cowboy Santa I started when the kid was 5 (he is going to be 25 in the fall) to a simply gorgeous crocheted blanket for my first niece's birth. She is now 16. The novel I started in 2005 was going to get completed. There were boxes of photographs and family stuff to sort thru, as well as genealogy inherited that needed more research. I also toyed with the idea of volunteering to become a story lady at one of the local elementary schools. I was even going to attack gardening again for the first time in years, as well as getting back to becoming the gourmet cook I used to be. I was even going to blog weekly.

That's when the old broad named Procrastination took one look at my ambitions and laughed right in my face. Loudly.She might have even snorted.

I have not touched a single piece of decades old needlework except to sort it and move it around. The 5,000 word novel is up to two parts - one with 17,000 words and another with 32,000, but melding them together is daunting and I keep editing and adding to established parts instead of meshing the stories together. The photographs are still in boxes (partially sorted), dad's genealogy stuff is still untouched on the shelf, the elementary school forgotten, gardening abandoned, and as for cooking, if dinner is even made, it more than likely is a frozen pizza that the mister puts in the oven. As far as blogging goes, none were written in 2013 and this is the 12th in the ensuing two years. All those pinterest pins I made?  Not even going there.

So.....if anyone can figure out how to force me into action, please feel free to kick me in the butt, since I evidently can't bend my leg to kick my own, although I do have an idea for a device that will do it for me. Unfortunately, I keep putting off building it.