Snap Out of It

Oh my dear internets. I have totally neglected you this week. However, you should totally thank me for that because all I have been doing is working, and when I have not been working, I have been running my mouth about work. And when I am not running my mouth about work, I am sitting in quiet contemplation about work. And when I am not doing that, I am sleeping and having dreams about work. WORK WORK WORK. And snow. For some reason I keep dreaming about snow.

I am a person who does many things poorly: gardening is not my forte, my knitting is only so-so, and somewhere between age 12 and now I have lost my rollerskating skills. This is only the tip of the iceberg of things I do badly. One thing I do well, however, is time management. I have a lot of people in my life and big piles of work stuff to do and time for myself to be had and other things going on pretty much back to back all day every day, but for some reason that does not overwhelm me. I live a balanced life and the clock does not scare me at all. You hear me, clock? TICK TOCK BACK AT YOU.

But this week, I admit it. Time won. It got all in my grill and then laughed and did the booty dance dangerously close to my nose. Ok fine. Dance it up.

Here is the bad thing about being a good time management person. Good time managers are totally transparent in their intention. The reason that we are not getting around to calling you? It's not because we don't have time. It's because we don't WANT TO. Because if we wanted to, we would make time. Maybe a little harsh, but at least you know what's up, right? My theory about bad time management is that it's just a lack of being honest with yourself about the fact that there are almost infinite choices to make about how you are going to spend your limited time, and that means that for a lot of those things, you're going to have to say no. And some people just don't know how to say no. It's like having a really huge menu at a restaurant and too many things look like a good idea. Either you make a decision that you are going to have the pork and beans, and you own that, or you order everything on the menu (because what if the meatloaf FEELS BAD?) and then only eat the pork and beans anyway. Which then makes you feel bad that you ordered everything but just couldn't go the distance. Plus, let's face it, if the meatloaf would have felt bad about not being ordered, how does it feel about being ordered and then ignored?

I don't know how this whole thing became all about meatloaf's feelings.

Anyway, so if any of that is even remotely true, then what was it that threw me off this week? Oh, I'll tell you what it was. Control.

See, lots of things are happening, workwise, that are completely out of my control. The Mayor's budget came out (slash goes the library's funding) and the fallout from that has ripped into overdrive. Now there are some things about this situation that I can control. Organizing with my co-workers about what to do, for example. Totally legit. But other than that? There is absolutely nothing I can do about the rest of it. Except think about it. And talk about it.

And think about it. And talk about it.

It's like, if I think about it enough, and talk about it enough, I can tame this stupid beast. Right? Because stewing on something around and around? Makes you, like, totally in control of it. Duh.

So anyway, yeah. I am going to stop that now. I need to conserve my time and energy for other things in life, like being a better rollerskating knitting gardener lady.