It’s been a while—again—since I’ve written. Suffice it to say that I’ve had A LOT going on over this past year or so and I’m sure I will fill you in over time. Funny how this blog has changed over the years. It began as a post-retirement professional outlet; a way for me to capture all those career coaching lessons I either received over the years, or meted out. Or both. Six years later, these essays have turned more into a conversation with my readers. I find that I’m still learning and still evolving. Sharing those experiences and working my way through them is a key way that I figure it all out. You get to come along for the ride.

Today, I want to tackle what has been keeping me from writing. If writing is my way of processing what I experience in the world, why hasn’t keeping up with posting these essays been the FIRST thing I do? Especially if I’ve had a lot going on. I think it has to do with being a very linear thinker, something that has both dogged me my entire life AND facilitated a lot of the success I’ve had.

The best way to explain this is to talk about mowing the lawn. It’s spring in Pennsylvania which means it rains every other day and the lawn grows like the weed it is. Normally, lawn mowing is Trish’s chore. It’s not that I don’t LIKE mowing the lawn. Wait—it IS that I don’t like mowing the lawn! I’ve suggested we get a lawn service. Our yard isn’t that big and I’m sure it wouldn’t cost much. But she enjoys the outside work and that feeling of accomplishment when it looks beautiful. Trish, however, had a new right hip installed last week. And for a few weeks prior to that, she was just in too much pain to mow. So, I’ve taken on that chore. (Let me emphasize that I am NOT complaining! I would do anything to make her life easier while she recovers. Once she recovers, though, the job is hers again.)

I had, of course, let the grass get a little high, so our electric mower had to work a little extra hard. The battery died with about three strips of the backyard to go. I put the battery in the charger and was paralyzed. Until I finished the lawn, I couldn’t shower. And for some insane reason, I felt like I couldn’t do ANYTHING ELSE until I had finished the lawn and showered. Why is that? Nothing else on my to-do list required a shower. I just had it in my mind that today’s activities would involve mowing the lawn, showering, and then doing other things. In that order. I am a linear thinker.

I’ve had this problem characteristic my entire life. In some ways, it’s a good thing because I get fixated on something and keep gnawing on it, like a dog with a bone, until it’s done. My writing can be like that when I get in something of a flow. Or when I get into a good book and just won’t put it down. Or start organizing the basement. Or any number of tasks that require a concentrated effort.

Alternatively, it’s a bad thing because I get paralyzed if I CAN’T get it done. I am challenged to put that task down and pick up another important one. I fixate. I distract myself with all kinds of non-productive things while I periodically go back to “the thing” until it’s done. Like when I can’t get the Daily Challenge on Spider Solitaire and just keep trying over and over and over (thanks, Mom, for introducing me to this @#$% game). In between attempts, I’ll check email. I’ll play a different game. I’ll walk into the kitchen and ponder a snack. I’ll pester a cat or two. What I SHOULD be doing is researching travel insurance options because we have limited time to nail it down. But nothing else gets done until I manage to solve that Solitaire challenge.

Many times, I procrastinate on “the thing” because I am a perfectionist with a lazy streak (really bad combination). I get overwhelmed with what it takes to do the task perfectly correctly and I can’t even get myself to start it. This was a real problem when I needed to do something icky like write performance reviews or capital expenditure justification documents—important things that others were depending on me to complete but that are just no fun to do.

Other times, getting “the thing” done isn’t even under my control. I have to wait for someone else’s action. So, instead of moving on to something else, I fixate on why that person has not done The Thing. Why haven’t they answered that email? Why hasn’t the doctor called me back? Why on earth do they give you a four hour time window for the appearance of a repair person? While I wait, I try the Spider Daily Challenge again instead of drafting an essay.

There have been a lot of events in my life over this past year that either I did not have control of and/or consumed my mental, emotional, and physical energy to the point that the thought of sitting down at the computer to write has overwhelmed me when it probably would have helped. Some of those things were positive new developments in my life. Others have been difficult times that I needed to navigate through. But I am a writer, after all, so I never stopped “writing in my head”. The problem with that process is that I do not have perfect recall and all those beautiful half-written essays just never made it to the page.

Since my world has finally moved into something of a reset, I’m resolved to remedying that writing problem. This essay is that first stab. I still have a lot to say. I’m hoping you still want to read about it, even after this long pause. As I leave you today, you’ll be happy to know that the lawn is indeed fully mowed (and I am showered). I started mowing at around 11:00, after Trish had the first follow up with her surgeon. I finished at 3:45. It didn’t help that I put the battery in the charger wrong and for most of the afternoon it was not charging. After correcting that, I was done in five minutes. And I got a LOT of solitaire done in the interim. Life is good.