Y'all Come Sit a Spell

I was going to do one thing.

That was the entire plan. One thing, followed by the pleasant feeling of having done it.

Then I looked at the thing.

Before I could start, I needed to move something out of the way. That something needed a home. Its home was full of other things, several of which I had been meaning to deal with for weeks. One needed a label. I couldn’t find the pen. Finding the pen led me to the drawer, and the drawer had apparently been waiting for this moment to tell me everything wrong with my life.

My original task was still sitting there, untouched, while twenty-seven others introduced themselves.

People call this task paralysis. From the outside, it can look like I’m refusing to do a simple chore. From where I’m sitting, I can see every step attached to it, including the steps I’ll have to undo if I get halfway through and run out of time.

I’m not lying on the couch thinking, I would love to neglect this.

I’m thinking, Where does this actually begin?

Sometimes I choose a tiny starting point and get moving. Sometimes that works beautifully. Sometimes starting reveals another six jobs I hadn’t noticed, and I have to stop before the whole afternoon disappears into a drawer I never intended to open.

And yes, there are days when I do all sorts of useful things while the original task waits patiently for me to remember it.

I can make a book, write an essay, take pictures of every side of a paperweight, and solve a problem nobody asked me to solve. Then I’ll stand in front of something ordinary and feel as though it requires a committee, a map, and permission from the Goddess Mother.

That’s the frustrating part. Being able to do something complicated doesn’t mean I can reliably start something simple. The complicated thing may have a clear first step, or it may be interesting enough that I’m already halfway in before I notice. The “simple” thing might have hidden conditions. It might be boring. It might mean deciding what to keep, what to move, and what counts as finished.

Becky needs a bigger pot.

I know this because I can see her every day. She can see me, too, and has taken to drooping dramatically whenever she would like to discuss it. Repotting her means getting into her enclosure, getting her out without making a mess of everything around her, finding the right pot and soil, and putting the whole little neighborhood back together.

I’ll probably water her today. She’ll perk up. Next week we’ll have this conversation again.

I need to repot her before I leave for Barcelona, so the task isn’t going away. Nor is it a mystery. I know what needs doing. The hard part is crossing the distance between I know and I’ve begun.

If you live with a brain like mine, you may know that distance. You can care deeply about a thing and still keep walking past it. You can remember it every day and still find it hard to start. You can be annoyed with yourself, which, in my experience, does absolutely nothing to make the pot larger.

So I’m trying to speak to myself more honestly. Becky’s repotting is a project. I can gather the supplies before I open the enclosure. I can clear a place to work. I can do those parts without demanding that the entire job happen the instant I notice her drooping.

And when I finally get her into a bigger pot, the other plants are going to look over and ask how Becky secured such high-class treatment in this neighborhood.

She’ll tell them, “Location, location, location.”

I was going to do one thing. It brought twenty-seven friends. I’m allowed to ask which one actually needs me first.