Woe is me. I’m having a pity party. And for what? My oldest daughter just called asking me to run errands with her. This morning, my husband invited me to have an early lunch with him.
I turned them both down. Am I crazy? People want to be with me and I turn them down? So I can what? Sit here and feel bad about not writing or putting away all the clutter I see? Or not completing that to do list that haunts me night and day?
What the heck is wrong with this picture?
I need analysis. And funny thing is, I have a couple of degrees in that very subject. Psychology and counseling. Do I use them? Not so much. No siree. I want to write. At least that is what I say. But do I do it? Do I actually sit in the chair and write? Or do I find every excuse I can to piddle with this and dabble with that and get very little accomplished while telling the world it’s all their fault.
Here’s a sample martyr speech. “Everybody needs something from me all the time. I never get time to myself and when I do, I have to spend it cleaning up everybody’s mess. By the time I get around to writing, everybody is coming back home to make more mess and the noise and needs begin. And, I don’t want to miss a thing. I’m very distractible you know. I must have ADD and it was never diagnosed. I flit from one thing to another never finishing a task and all these people making noise and having fun or watching TV make me want to be in the middle of things so I just can’t concentrate.” That’s what I say or at least what I think.
Then there are the delightful, over-achievers in my writing class. Those friends I’m living vicariously through. Those disciplined ladies who write every day and might have even hired organizers to help them move forward with their work so they have no excuse to be distracted by clutter. They are cranking out great writing week after week and some are actually publishing books and meeting with movers and shakers. Oh my gosh. One is rubbing knees with Oprah for Pete’s sake. So, what’s all this doing to my self-esteem, I ask myself? “Self,” I said, “It makes my little Id, Ego, and Super Ego want to pick up my guitar and sing ballads and woe is me songs. But that would involve writing, which I obviously don’t have time to do as it takes time to host pity parties. And I am throwing a doozy.
March 17, 2014 at 2:18 pm
You are a writer. You are a writer. You are a writer. Now click your heels and off you’ll go.
January 10, 2017 at 5:22 pm
I find I get more accomplished trying NOT to do the thing I set out to do.
Make the bed? First we need to collect all the stuff that needs to go back upstairs. No point in making two trips.
Hmm. That pile of stuff on the counter has to go in the recycling. Wait! I want to look at the coupons before I toss it.
Here’s a coupon for black beans! I’ll make chili for dinner tomorrow; let me start a shopping list.
And if you ask me why I never got the bed made, it’s because you interrupted me too many times. Go way!
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
January 10, 2017 at 10:56 pm
I understand only too well.