Brain dump

My mind feels as scattered as the hamper of socks that the cats decided made the perfect toy. That wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't been so full to begin with, or if I had already paired all the socks or put the ideas in a more cohesive form. So, whether I look inward or outward, I'm finding a mess.

I got one major life problem under control today. I ought to feel much more relieved than I do, but I just can't quite access that right now. It seems like there are ten less important but equally urgent things that I need to take care of NOW. I hate the word and the feeling of urgency in my life. I'm a procrastinator. When my plate gets overly full, I tend to escapism. These are problems. I know, I know. Really, I do, and I have been working on them. I still don't like urgency.

Love God.
Love family. Love friends.
Love yourself.

It's a panicky word for me, and I've been trying to find something less nerve wracking for a replacement: the present, immediacy, prompt, timely, the now.

None are quite what I need. The present and the now feel too spacy for me. Prompt and timely are not quite accurate, because I'm obsessive about deadlines and being on time. Immediacy seems to come closest, because I want to quit delaying action. That's not quite it though either because I am constantly busy, but I've really learned the hard way lately how poor a prioritizer I am. It seems to be another irony in my life that I seem to have the big priorities pretty much straight. Love God. Love family. Love friends. Love yourself. Live with both strength and gentleness. Work and play hard. Welcome both laughter and tears. Hang on through good times and bad. Don't care too much about what other people think of you. Breathe. (That's enough of the big things for now.)

The smaller ones, the ones that seem to make the daily differences in quality of life, are the ones I just don't handle comfortably enough for my satisfaction. The older I get, the more I want to get a grip on these. Well, I guess the upside of this is that my midlife crisis should be pretty tangible. Improving how you manage the daily details of life is really much easier than making the world, the universe and everything into a construct that feels sensible to you. If I'm wrong here, well, there's always xanax.

priorities, procrastination