Love Letter to Procrastination
“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last-minute panic.”
Dear Procrastination,
Thank you for make the water warmer when I do the dishes. I have never enjoyed it so much.
Thank you for making me so miserable by taking a day that I intended to paint (all day until drunk in color). And after tossing and turning into the night, got up at 5 a.m. the next morning, made some awful trucker coffee and went straight into the cold studio painted badly until I woke up to the awesomeness your panic produced.
Thank you for giving me a completely new experience of petting the cat. I discovered he has 88 orange stripes and is actually missing a toenail. Important facts.
Thank you for forcing me into that box I never wanted to open. You know the one I’m talking about. It has been sitting in my closet for decades. It’s had 3 box replacements from being worn out. Yes, yes… love letters. You made me cry that day and the next when I missed a deadline at work. I love you for your predictable consequences. Makes success a clear path.
Especially, I adore you for this: You reveal to me if nothing else contrast between a deeply satisfying creating life and one that feels like I eat styrofoam for breakfast and a big Mac for dinner. When you are around you little trickster… everything other than that amazing feeling of color magic, word wisdom and relationship bonds that take time and nurturance is so yummy. I see you. I have my eye on you. I may indulge in my adoration here and there. But I ask you:
Is it time wasted if I am enjoying it so much? Or is it simply the call for reorganization? Maybe you are tapping on my shoulder to show me I have changed and not caught up. Maybe doing the dishes for an hour gives me 3 more in the studio because I am more present and relaxed. Maybe a Big Mac for dinner is exactly the thing this strict healthy eater needs every so often. Maybe I actually DO love you because you contain an important message about habits.
How many of my automatic habits have I outgrown?
What new ones do you dear procrastination invent for me as we trolly off together in yet another diversion? Many of your ideas are pure trash. But some of them … genius. Like my new cat Frankie. How many minutes I thought wasted on DoDo cat rescue stories on Instagram? Only to find the perfect parking lot rescue cat for me a few months later.
Okay procrastination, what will we map together this year? I’m listening.