There is a difference between thinking and doing. Doing is easy. Doing is just tasking. Make the list of things that need to get done and them do them. Doing is almost auto-pilot. There are days I love to have a long list of things I have to do. I feel fruitful and productive. I tackle the list with gusto. The list of things to do leaves little (or no) time to think. That is kind of the point. Stay busy. Stay productive. Prove your usefulness through the menial tasks. Having a long list of things to do is never what stresses me out. I might blame the stress of all the things piled up waiting to be completed. Tonight, I realized this is a falsehood, a myth. My stress arises from not having time to THINK and subsequently to FEEL. I can’t begin to tell you how I feel until I’ve had time to think and I can easily avoid thinking by maintaining a steady buzz of tasks and chores. Then the capitulation begins. My mind and subsequently my heart will not tolerate being ignored or side-barred. I have learned this about myself. When I whine and fret about “all that I have to do” what is truly causing my distress is that I need the brain space to THINK about something but I have cluttered up my head so fantastically, I can’t think straight. It is an elaborate avoidance mechanism. Weeks, even months, can pass without me truly thinking through a major issue in my life. And if I don’t set aside time to think about it, then I can’t possibly know how I FEEL about it. Stay busy and avoid. It is an effective strategy.

It works effectively until I have a brief, hard rain that tapers off to a light drizzle and then ceases, leaving water dropping slowly from the eaves. The sun is setting on the other side of the house and the backyard is slowing fading into dusk. The birds’ chirping and singing shifts, sounding like the casual and familiar chatter around a family dinner table. The bugs make their evening noises and I hear a yip-yip out in the woods. I wonder if it is a coyote. I am no longer busy. I have no tasks or chores at this moment. I have eaten the dinner I toted out to the house. There is nothing but the fall of night and the luxury to think and thus…..to feel. My home will be a place to think and to feel, to be still and quiet, especially as night falls.