Confessions of a workaholic

You know you're avoiding something when taking a crack at this mess suddenly becomes an attractive use of your time.

It has been exactly three weeks since I woke up on the first morning of my summer vacation here. And despite vociferous protests from the Type A part of my brain, I've heeded the advice of several of you who witnessed the craziness of this last semester and have deliberately ignored the impulse to "do something productive" during this break. But I think my defenses are cracking.

I know. I'm supposed to be figuring out what I really want out of my life to make me happy. I'm supposed to be finding real ways to relax. This means not focusing on "the Plan" as it was originally laid out -- to get this master's degree and then launch myself into an energetic search for a professorship or editorial position. It means not worrying about what will happen if for a while after I graduate, we fail to become a two-income household. It means not listening to all the practical advice I was ever given on building a foundation for my future as an independently solvent woman.

It means staring spare time in the face and deciding what to do with it. Which is not the same as deciding what not to do with it. The latter is all I've really accomplished, I think. Don't enter last month's receipts into the budget spreadsheet. Don't research where to send essays for publication. Don't do anything that could be construed as work. Don't worry about how much time I'm "wasting."

I've knocked off the easy stuff on the List of Ways to Relax -- sleeping in and reading to my heart's content and just being in the same space as D every evening and every weekend. And while that has been very good, the Type A part of my brain has been feeling so deprived of activity that I find myself guiltily breaking from my vacation regimen (it's like cheating on a diet!) just to appease its hunger. It started with loading a few plates into the dishwasher during mornings last week. Then there was that one load of laundry that turned into three, all of it neatly folded -- and then the toilet that was so conveniently in need of disinfecting right before my shower on Saturday (I had to get squeaky, so why not the loo too?). Then yesterday, I cleaned the kitchen and before I could stop myself, the dining and living rooms as well.

Today, though, was the clincher. I opened the door to our office closet and actually considered giving it the full-on reorganization it desperately needs (see photo). Fortunately, the boxes are stacked so high that I can't get them down without D's help. There's also the risk of having something heavy whack me on the head if I try to get the items at the bottom of the pile out, so for now, the contents of the closet are safe.

I didn't intentionally go into the closet to try to sort through all the random junk we've collected. I was, in fact, searching for a piece of embroidery that I started four summers ago and never finished. But clearly, even my pursuit of new (or renewed) forms of relaxation is only revealing other ways to deviate from my plan to get rest and get happy or else.

D says he'll help me find the embroidery. I think I may have discovered another project for myself, though, that veers dangerously into cleaning territory: putting our stuff on eBay. We've intended to do this since last summer's move, but we haven't made time. I now have tons of it, and if real estate prices here are an indication of the space we can afford, I need to clear out some of our possessions. At the very least, it'll make our current place less cramped, which is definitely key to creating an environment conducive to R&R.

I admit, it's a compromise. But maybe it'll keep my brain satisfied enough that I'll be able to think about what I really need to be happy. Not in five years, but right now. Besides, if completely squelching the Type A in me makes me miserable, then the rest of this is moot, no?