We talked about procrastination.
Here’s a poem for those whose to-do lists are burial sites of longing.
Where grief takes the shape of delay, and tenderness becomes time’s true measure.
An invitation to sit beside procrastination, letting it speak, letting it teach.
A ceremony of little cups.
***
“I need a time management class”, she said.
You believe that your present belongs to tomorrow.
You’re toying with Earth time vs Clock time.
You delay.
But Time is there to stay in its moving way of being.
Time manages itself.
Time is not the problem.
In an era when you can purchase an item online from the search function before you’ve even had the time to ponder your decision, you are, in your analogue time, delaying, delaying, delaying, exponentially. Only to meet a bigger, ungrateful mental load and sadness upon arrival.
If this ‘procrastination’ had a shape, what would it be? I asked.
It would be sadness dripping from whatever hasn’t shaped itself yet.
A mourning, a saudade of something that hasn’t been faced… yet.
You are full of this grief of what you cannot face because it is not about the taxes or the business accounts you defer, or the medical appointment you are still not making; it is not about the report or that new chapter of your novel your hand hasn’t yet penned.
It is the shame and the pain and the hurt you are fabricating so as not to face what you want and what can make you full.
An emotion that has been left to ripen but that is starting to rot instead.
Yet you think it is too green to eat.
And you know it.
The fear, the shame, the anxiety are the ivy that grabs and takes, and twirls around your ankles.
The energy-sucking vacuum that daunts you and shift-shapes into a monstrous creature.
What do you want to do with the monster ivy? I asked.
“I would love ..ideally… to put it into a box… or a cup”, she says.
“Well, here is my offer: I offer you not one but a few tiny wee cups. What can you do with these?
“I’m breaking down the monster creature in a few crunchy bits.”
Not too small. Just enough to separate the crust from the soft middle, the chore from the ease, the crumbs from the napkin. The dark moods from the light moods. The practical doables, from the unbearably large blobs.
I’m clearing out space and laying the parts in several little cups.
I am having a conversation with each of them, at my pace ( I am happy to start somewhere with you.)
Which ones do I love, which ones suffocate me, which ones speak (what does she say?), which ones are not for me to chew?
Grace of tiny bites…
Am separating.
I know these tasks are intertwined in real life, but just for now, I want to landscape them and shrink them.
I put on the side the cups I won’t utilise to carry only those that matter. For now.
I notice the feeling.
“Which tasks, given the miracle choice, would you rather not tackle?” I wonder.
Like sweating and yelling and drilling through the last toxic shelves on a Christmas Eve. It’s December 24, the shops will close in a short while and I’m in a mixed state of frantic panic and disgust.
Given the choice.
And if I had the choice…
I would not buy presents at the last minute at Christmas. I would stop assuming that my loved ones will care if I de-synchronise Christmas. I know deep down they won’t care. They want me, not plastic, or socks, or shower gel.
“What would you rather do instead?”
“I would send people the link to a little video. In March and September… To show I care.”
I want to tell them “I love you”.
No wrapping.
I want to connect and bond and hear you say: “Oh, that’s sweet. How are you?”
And I will answer and listen back, soaking them in juicy attention.
I will become so interested in us being together.
That is my gift.
“Sounds like a wholesome, generous and timeless precious gift.”
She smiled.
“And that report for next week Friday, how do you want to shrink that creature?”
“When I come back home, I will unsharpen my scissors, round them, soften them, so they shape, not cut, a moment of compassionate collaging. There will be no deadline or cutoff point. I will meet my cup little by little. It’s a meeting, not a cage fight match.
I will grace my afternoon with 30 minutes of reporting, then 30 minutes of conscious daydreaming. And, why not, 30 minutes of cooking or home-making.
Just not at the same time. I will be gentle with myself.
“What are you assuming that is free and liberating for you now?”
I care, I care. I am worthy, my time is worthy, and this is good enough.
“And if you knew that, what else would change for you?
