In Praise of Procrastination

I suppose I should begin by admitting that I planned to write this post on Monday.  Or perhaps it was Sunday.  Either way, here we are on Wednesday, and I suppose we'll just see if we make it to completion.  If not, that's okay with me.  Whenever we finish, it will be fine.  What's more, the longer I wait, creating in my mind, putting off putting pen to paper (or fingers to keypad, but that lacks both rhythm and alliteration), the more fun it will be to finally finish.

I wish you could have seen me in action this weekend, y'all.  For a round-bellied slowpoke who spends most of her afternoons napping, I was in rare form.  I spent ten hours Saturday feverishly cleaning and organizing, and then eight hours on Sunday doing the same.  Monday I awoke and insisted that we drive nearly an hour to my favorite forest for a long morning hike.  Where did I get this burst of energy, you ask?  It's very simple.  All summer long, my house has been in dire need of reorganization.  This weekend was the very last one before my husband returned to work for the start of the school year.  Long story short, it was the last minute.

And my, how that last minute motivates!  I don't understand the stigma of waiting until the last minute, the cloud under which procrastinators hover, like smokers hiding outside in the cold, puffing away shamefacedly, like there's something inherently wrong with pushing up against a deadline, waiting for the rush, and then racing the clock, flying down that list sitting listless for ages, zooming through duties with the best buzz this side of an espresso!

And what's more?  If I hadn't procrastinated?  If I hadn't spent most of my summer in a dream state, floating through life like a starry-eyed stoner, licking popsicles lackadaisical on my deck, lacking a single care in the world outside of when and where I might next go swimming, napping as if my very life depended on it?  Well then, I submit to you that my dining room would not be the pinnacle of organizational accomplishment that it is, sporting separate shelves for wine and martini glasses, cookbooks sorted by type of cuisine and children's books grouped by size and interspersed with puzzle, art and alphabet areas.  My son's living room toy shelves would never be organized into perfectly put together truck and construction centers, running like the ever-so-efficient trains in the basket on the top shelf to the right of the toolbox-puzzle board book which now has its very own decorative box for storing those pesky pieces that have formerly ended up spread across the floor.  My maternity clothes would surely lack organization by type, season and degree of give in the waist relegating them to first, second or third trimester.  My hardwoods would hardly be sparkling to their present degree.

Procrastination makes possible these last minute feats of amazing accomplishment.  Lazy days add up, not only in the body, but in the psyche too.  They are deposits in the account of "someday I can...", and the more you've got saved up, well, the more you can eventually withdraw, and spend on the accomplishment equivalent of a boozy blowout weekend in Vegas.  Now, I'm not much for Vegas.  Been there a couple times, and it really isn't my scene.  But if I can bust out a hidden inner Martha Stewart, just a couple times a year, enough to inspire me to put the legos where they belong on the shelf after the toddler retires to bed, and stay on top of the paperwork that constantly piles up in my mailbox, well, let's just say I'll consider it my sacred duty to create those conditions.  My absolute imperative to spend as much time napping and daydreaming as it takes.

Now if you'll excuse me,  I think it's time to put my feet up on the sofa and gaze around my newly organized living space with spacey, scatterbrained satisfaction.  All in the interest of future accomplishment, of course.