“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”
—White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland
“It’s a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.”
–J.K. Rowling
Confession: I do not like to be told what to do, and more importantly when to do it. I can still hear my mom telling me “Clean your room!” and me saying “I will!” but thinking, when I’m good and ready to. The mood has to hit me first. I need to be inspired to clean my room and then watch out, I’ll clean the bee-jeebies out of that room, but in my own time. Ya, so that didn’t go over very well. The truth is that when I was a teenager, I rarely felt inspired to clean anything. I fought her every time, but I also lost every time.
The same can be said about writing letters. I was made to write people letters when I was young, usually to thank them for a gift. It’s the right thing to do of course. I liked to write, but not letters for some reason. I viewed writing letters as a chore, an expected chore, so I would dig my heels in and resist any way I could. This followed me well into my adult life. Years after my ex and I were apart and living on opposite coasts, I received in the mail one day a box of cute writing paper and envelopes from his mother. A box of 12. Each envelope was addressed back to her and had a stamp already in place. The idea was that I sit down with my son every few weeks and write a few lines to let her know how we were doing and what we were up to. A nice gesture? I’m sure she meant it as such. About 15 years later I was searching for something unrelated and came across that box of writing paper and envelopes, and you guessed it, all 12 stamped envelopes still waiting for their self-addressed journey that would never come. The combined postage probably couldn’t mail one letter today.
I can see the same thing happening with my gym routine. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are the chosen gym days. Tuesdays, Thursdays and some Sundays are supposed to be run days. These were my rules. I decided on the schedule but as soon as my husband starts to suggest that perhaps its time to go I get really cranky. I immediately go into Don’t Tell Me What To Do mode and I start resisting. I know! I’m a petulant child. At almost 50 years old, I’m still just a petulant child.
This brings me to my commitment of post writing for this blog. When we started this little blog there were three of us. We divided the week up so that we each would write a new blog post twice a week and then do a combined post on the 7th day. That meant there was a new post up every day. We kept that up for quite a long time, then someone, and I think it was probably me, suggested we only write 1 post each and just leave it up for our 2 days. That worked for quite awhile too. Then somebody, probably me, suggested that we cut back the post writing even more, and we did. When one of our team of three chose to sign off indefinitely and we were down to only 2, we each took on some extra writing. That worked for a bit, but then somebody, quite likely me, decided it was too much so we cut it back again. Now, we have agreed to each write only once every two weeks and post on Monday. Simple. Lots of time to find some inspiration. We get to write about whatever we want to so the possibilities are endless, the time vast, the pressure is off and yet…
So there you have it. I’m posting this little confession in the form of my blog post…at this time, late on a Tuesday instead of first thing last Monday morning. Plus, as an added bonus, I’ve been working on it at 6pm on this Tuesday, despite, no precisely because that is our expected dinner hour. Not that my husband has that expectation, although I’m sure he’s hungry, but it’s my own self imposed rule and so I must for whatever reason, rebel against it occasionally too. Good grief! What is wrong with me?
