A Pause to Process at the Start of a Busy Week

This morning I have a long list of things that I want to do, tasks I want to clear off of my list before the holiday weekend begins. I look at my calendar and starting tomorrow I have six days completely free of appointments. It looks glorious and spacious. Perhaps I could do glorious nothings in that space, excuse myself from productivity. Or I could pivot from business tasks to personal ones. I am very, very tired of looking at the partially deconstructed wall that separates my front room from my kitchen. Do I want to rest or do I want to cut a hole in the wall of my house and move a door? The answer is that I both want a chance to rest AND I want that door moved. I wish there were some way to grant myself a bonus month during the next five days.

I looked back over the last several blog posts. There is a strong theme (which this post continues) of longing for more open space in my life. That theme is the reason for this post. This is me stealing some moments at the beginning of my day to let my thoughts spill through my fingers rather than shoving the thoughts aside to get stuff done. I am taking a few minutes to process my life before addressing my task list. I am delving a bit to discover why I woke anxious. Why, mere days after concluding a wonderfully successful crowdfunding which will pay our bills for a while, my mind wants to balk at spending any money. Why a desire to cry is near the surface when I pause to feel things. On that last point I can make a list: The mass shooting at Club Q which demonstrates, again, how people I love are at risk for simply existing; the potential Twitter implosion/dissolution which changes the social media landscape and reminds my how very powerless I am in the face of corporations and billionaires; being greeted on a morning that I’m tired and could use help with the fact that one of my disabled household members is not able to carry any weight today so the dishes he usually does will have to be redistributed; the expensive chair that was delivered yesterday to help Howard with ME/CFS management has already had a mechanical failure.

So I suppose that is a sufficient list to justify the tension in my mind and heart. The question is what to do about it. Most of the stress is caused by things I am powerless to change. This too is a regular theme in my life. I have to find ways to claim autonomy and joy in the face of powerlessness. I must remember that Joy is an act of defiance. Today, as I contemplate my tasks, I will try to reframe them as things I get to do rather than things I have to do. I will steal moments to photograph small natural things, pet kitties, hug people, buy a new Pride flag for my lawn. I will pause and remember the whys of all of my tasks, the reasons that I put them onto my list in the first place. At the front end of the day this feels like (and is) additional effort, but it is an effort like putting tire into the wheelbarrow wheel. It makes every load so much easier to push that over the course of a day’s work I gain energy rather than lose it.

Deep breath. I can do this.