inertia

you may think, have i had absolutely no thoughts in an entire month? well i answer you, no, i certainly haven't. i've been a blissful blank slate walking around, minding my own business, with nary a thought in the world.

and now, the only thing drawing me to think of thoughts is my chronic procrastinating tendencies. i should be cleaning my house, doing laundry, writing new church serving schedules, figuring out lesson plans for my sub on monday (cursed curriculum day... i'll be a mere hallway away from my very own classroom, but i'll be typing in dreary curriculum to a dreary new curriculum program). as usually happens when there's too many things to do, i set them all away in a compartment marked 'system overload' and find totally unrelated and unnecessary things to do, such as eat pizza and ice cream for breakfast, stand over the heater and stare into space, try to dredge up thoughts to share on the aptly named thoughts blog...
if i were a computer, i would be at that stage where there's too many tasks and it freezes up and not even pushing 'ctrl' 'alt' 'del' works and you have to reach back and find the 'reset' slot on the back and push it over with the end of a pen...
only problem is, no one's around to do that for me.
so here i am, frozen up.

truth be told, the ultimate issue freezing me up has nothing to do with any of the myriad tasks i should be doing. i usually find great pleasure in doing the kinds of things waiting patiently for me to tend to. i usually relish them and revel in their completion as i tick each one off my mental list as i happily go about my saturday.
the real reason my brain has been frozen for the last month has more to do with fear.

there are some things happening in my heart that i really don't want to deal with. i've had tiny little flashes of those things, and i've flinched, drawn back, shut down my brain. as i logically recognize the value of facing my fears, my desire to turn away is much stronger.
if i focus on all the banal nothings of the day, watch the bare branches on the trees outside my window, stare intently at the dust motes in the sunshine stream, maybe i can forget that i ever had those brighter-than-light flashes of anxiety.
even though the after image is still burned on the back of my retinas. when i close my eyes, i still see them, floating, waiting for me to square off, get some gumption, deal with them and move on.

meanwhile, an entire month has gone by.

this monday is the first monday of a new month.
i'm seeing a counselor.
nick has been a jolt of courage for me, leading by example, seeking counseling for himself and encouraging me to do the same. he's given me a good solid push in the right direction. i'm the poster-child for inertia.

in·er·tia
/ɪnˈɜrʃə, ɪˈnɜr-/ –noun

the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force.

here's hoping no other external forces come along before i get there.