Pulling Myself Forward

Sharks must keep moving or they will die. I am not a shark, and yet I hardly ever stop. It used to be that my days filled with things were driven by fear. I kept moving because I was afraid of the consequences if I slowed down. This fall I’ve put a lot of thought into identifying the sources of those fears and attempting to disconnect them. It is working. I am much less afraid. Yet I am just as busy as I was before. Instead of spending my energy fleeing, I spend my energy pulling myself toward things I imagine. My free minutes are spent upon projects which inch me closer to things that I want. I organize the house so that the next-week me will have a nicer place to live. I pick grapes and turn them into jelly so that the winter me will have no guilt about letting them rot and she’ll also have amazing jelly to spread on her toast. I do lots of things for other people as well, but in order to not feel put-upon I have been focusing much upon the benefits I get from the things that I do. I like it when my family is fed, wearing clean clothes, and has their homework done. This being pulled through my days by future desires is much more pleasant than being propelled by fears. However I still need to find ways that the me-of-now gets a turn instead of always being spent doing things for the me-of-the-future. So, further adjustments are necessary, but these are so much smaller. It is nice to be in the tinkering phase of family routine rather than in the midst of major overhaul.