Procrastination

I have just begun writing an essay which was due yesterday :( Why is it that as soon as something hits my to-do list it becomes a chore and all the fun goes out of it? It becomes a law and takes on all the connotations and fun (ie very little) of that.

But it's not just the chore element that has caused the procrastination. All it takes to get over the chore roadhump is a slight mind switch. The real reason I'm procrastinating is because I haven't been able to work out what I want to say. But before, I sat down and in my morning pages started threshing out what it was that I couldn't work out. Which sounds a bit strange, but so often I can articulate what I don't know, which is probably what Rumsfeld was trying to say when he got lampooned. How weird that place is, where we can see what we don't know.

But maybe there are two types of not knowing. The first type, you can see what you don't know because part of you on some deep level does know it, or is in the process of having it revealed. The second type is the things that we just don't know at all, couldn't see even if they were pointed out to us, things that we are so blind to they might as well not exist. Those things are evident to lots of other people. Which is a bit of a scary concept, really, and not a thought place that I want to sit in for too long. It's cold and concrete and has no scatter cushions or comfort. And certainly no God. He's here in the present, showing me the things that I already half-know. How gentle he is with the showing. It makes me trust him even more, the way he goes about revealing the hardest things of myself.

An old school friend is down in Melbourne at the moment from Western Australia, where she moved about 16 years ago. We haven't seen or spoken to each other for 15 years until recently. A few phone calls over the past few months, and now we're talking about catching up while she is down. Which is pretty scary, really. I'm not so sure if I'm going to be able to do it this weekend. I have procrastinated so much with this essay that I am running out of time. Sometimes I wonder if I procrastinated purposefully so I wouldn't be able to meet her this weekend. We are such wiley creatures. But no, I think I have procrastinated really because I have worked an extra day this week and I felt it. If nothing else, I have the writer's requirement for oodles and oodles of solitude in which to think and process things. It is growing stronger the more pronounced my creativity becomes, and has nothing to do with not wanting to be around other people. Actually, it enhances the time I spend with other people.

Except when those other people are old school friends I haven't seen for over a decade. The anticipation of that is quite fraught with anxiety.

I will be so relieved when my essay and my meeting (or not) are over.

This post was pure procrastination.

It's a chorish Saturday, bloggers.