Procrastination?!

I was in fine procrastinating form today. I definitely want to get back to writing for my blog after a “soft summer” as we called it in the writing group. Really, truly I do! And yet, I’ve been procrastinating all week and most definitely all day…

To put it in a bit of perspective, we moved recently. We bought a house, a cute one perfect for just the two of us, no pets, no kids. We’ve been settling in for a few weeks now. The week before last we were able to get the car parked in the garage! Much excite!

And yet, there is still much to do. Not to mention the fact that this feels like the first house where I was fully cognizant of my permission as an adult to make my own damn decisions. I think I may have mentioned that I’ve struggled for a long time to make decisions for myself and that I’ve often looked for the permission to do simple things, things that no adult should need permission to do...

This house makes me happy, and it shows. Part of my procrastination recently involved weeding and tidying up the back yard. And those that know me well should understand the lengths I’ve gone to in the past not to do yard work. But here, I’m taking care of what’s mine. I’m really understanding the power of knowing that this house is mine.

It’s weird to me that it’s such a simple thing to adjust in my thinking, and yet it’s so powerful. Ownership is a powerful thing; choice is a powerful thing. Understanding that I have ownership over myself and my life are the building blocks to seeing that I am actually the owner of my possessions, that are an extension of myself and my life.

I think I’ve been so afraid to really own what’s mine because I was never sure what I was allowed to do with it. Always worried that someone outside of myself would come along to tell me that I’d been doing it “wrong” all this time. I was so afraid of failure that I didn’t really live at all. I just followed the various preordained, vague paths that were laid out before me.

But no more! And thus, I have no one to blame but myself for the hours that I puzzled, finishing the 1000 piece one we had on the table. No one else to blame for the Queer Eye episodes I watched...Yup, I’m good at procrastinating!

But, to be real, I’ve done a lot of my best work by doing what I want to do first and then getting down to creating or doing whatever it is that I’ve been percolating on all day or week. Thankfully I don’t stress out so much, like I did in college when I procrastinated on papers. But I do think that I’ve made a lot of progress towards a more calm and chill approach to life.

On the other side of procrastination there is definitely a time at which you need to just sit your butt down and write. Sometimes that’s at the normal, planned time of 6pm on Wednesday or Sunday...sometimes it’s after 9pm on Sunday because you did everything but write all day long.

What I’m learning though, is that it’s OK to still be scared of living life and dreaming as long as it’s not holding me back. It’s OK to procrastinate all day or week as long as I do find the time to write something. Life is a fun, messy ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. And that is OK, more than OK, really.

Have you been procrastinating on anything?

I’m not sure that I want to see procrastination as a good or bad thing, and I’m not sure that I ever saw it as the almost “wrong” thing it was supposed to be during my school years. It’s actually been useful and, really, it being this bad or wrong thing only feeds into this idea that we are only worth our productivity...ummm, no thanks!

PS. Here is a picture of my roses which even though they are pink I absolutely love them!