I’ve just checked my count. This is the 132nd day of the year and this is the 132nd post. A few years ago, I swear I would have had no trouble keeping up. The problem lies in my relationship with time.
Julia is out reducing some poor, helpless piece of wood to shavings, so I thought I’d better do some tidying while she was out. It’s not a significant amount compared to her contribution, but it just means I can feel a little better about myself when she returns.
So I pulled the duvet flat and wished the breakfast pots. It took about ten minutes and I begrudged every minute of it, because I want to be writing.
St Joseph and the Angel c 1920 by Wilhelmina Geddes.
Once I sat down at the keyboard I checked the Facebook page for the Numismatic Society, read my emails (little had changed since 20 minutes ago) and checked if anything was new for sale on eBay, I realised I’d just wasted more time than doing a bit of washing up, and hadn’t worried about it at all.
Time management, like diet, is a flexible concept in my world. They are also susceptible to the vagaries of memory. I don’t mean to waste time, or eat too much, but I do. It’s not because I want to fritter my life away, or be fat, it’s just that I forget I have time management and health constraints.
I actually used to have nightmares about that when I gave up smoking – after about a year, I’d start dreaming that I’d accepted a cigarette from someone because I’d forgotten I’d given up. I haven’t had one for a while now, but I kept having them for years, and would often wake up frightened that I’d really started and had wasted all the effort of breaking the habit.
I once had a job I hated, and for years after I left it I would wake in the middle of the night thinking I was still there and had to get back to it in the morning.
The brain is a strange place.
Octofoil window – Angel by John Hungerford Pollen 1863 Our Lady of the Assumption, Rhyl, Denbighshire
It isn’t so much the time management that does for me, it is getting started. I can waste days feeling bad about not doing a job that only takes an hour once I’ve got started.
The brain is a strange place. I sometimes have dreams that I’m eating meat, even though I’ve been a vegetarian for about ten years. As for wasting time and dieting…I sure can relate. Onward ho, Quercus. Onward ho!
It’s a comfort to know I’m not the only one! 🙂
You are not alone.
Pulled the duvet flat? 😂 Aye, and that’s why I’m not allowed to make the bed😉
I’m sure Julia will come home with another piece of wonderfully turned piece of wood 😀
I’ve refused to stop smoking, someone told me they’ll kill me, but I figured it was a small price to pay for the years of pleasure 😂 Oh! That dream, they are quite horrible. I used to dream I still had the Disco company and no one had organised the weekend’s gigs, woke up stressed and then relieved. Do you feel relieved when you wake up after the job dream?
Yes. The first few seconds are confusion and worry then my memory returns, the stress departs and I feel relaxed and float away back to sleep. Well, I used to. These days every time I wake for anything I feel like I need the toilet. 🙂