Watershed

I propelled myself into Monday on a wave of nervous energy. I knew when entering the week that it would be a watershed. The work and decisions of this week determine the shape of things to come. It was important to get it right, so I made a list. The list was my focus. Task by task I was going to get through. I arrived at Monday evening with my list still long and my reserves exhausted. Most of my reserves were expended on emotional management rather than task accomplishment. Tuesday was a complete loss at getting work done. The list lay idle while my attention fractured across dozens of small fears and frets.

Wednesday is the fulcrum of most weeks and this week in particular. Today we can see that Howard will get all the margin art done before the end of the week. The cover is already drawn and out for coloring. I filed paperwork which will transfer my youngest two children to a different school. Now I need to settle my mind about these things. The settling is important because while this week determines new directions, the results of these shifts will not be clear until August. I am afraid of August. It is full of tight deadlines and big events. I have no idea how I’m going to fit a book shipping around the August conventions. I’ve only got a vague idea how I am going to manage the 36 hour turn around from the end of Worldcon to the first day of school. During those 36 hours I have to transport all of us and a load of booth supplies across 8 hours of desert while post-convention exhausted. I don’t even know if the youngest of my kids will be transferred to the new school with his sister, and probably won’t know until the week I’m away at Worldcon, because the schools won’t make their final lists until then.

But at least the decisions are made instead of pending. I’ve mixed enough metaphors for one evening. Time for bed.