It wasn’t by intention.
I think about writing here almost every day.
But you know how sometimes, when you mean to do something (let’s imagine filing the week’s mail, or sending a thank you note for a thoughtful gift, or stopping by to visit a sick or sad friend) and then you don’t get to it right away as you should have?
Before long, days, weeks, and perhaps months slip by.
At that point, when you imagine actually trying to do that thing you haven’t done, the distance between your initial intention and today becomes a wide, gaping canyon that you feel you can’t possibly leap across. You feel daunted by the difference between how you imagined you’d do something and the reality of how you might actually do it. Today.
And, because so much time has passed, you feel you ought to be able to do that thing even better than you might have if you’d done it when you first should have, because you’ve apparently had all that time to do it better.
But isn’t that ridiculous?
Because how could you possibly file papers better next month than you could today?
And how could your thank you note be any more beautifully, truthfully written?
And how could your visit to that friend matter more three months later than three months ago, when she wished you were by her side then, on that gray day?
I’m a chronic procrastinator in two specific ways: I procrastinate because I dread doing something, and I procrastinate because I look forward to something so much, I’m afraid I’ll ruin it or waste it when I finally get to it (which I suppose is another form of dread).
And isn’t that ridiculous? Because then it means I don’t do it at all.
By which I mean Writing. Here. Now.
Grongar 