Procrastination

04.25.20

I haven’t written anything in almost a month, and there’s not really any excuse for it since the city has been under lockdown for the last several weeks, so it’s not like I haven’t had the time. Every day I tell myself I’m going to write, and every day I end up sketching too long, or watching too many YouTube videos, or finding other ways of putting it off until it’s too late and I reason that it’s okay to just push it to the next day. “Tomorrow, for sure,” I think to myself, the doubt already a seed budding in the back of my mind because the habit has already made itself so clear.

I don’t know why, but I’ve felt a sort of paralysis recently when it comes to writing. I feel like the task is daunting and impossible, and I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like there’s too much to say, or not enough. It’s a weird time with this whole virus situation, and sometimes it feels like both are true at once – that a lot is going on, and at the same time, nothing at all is moving forward.

I have to start getting into the habit of writing every day again – exercising those muscles and reacquainting myself with the feeling of articulating my thoughts in some way that makes things more coherent and therefore more manageable. The beauty of writing is that it allows me to control those untamed thoughts constantly swirling around my head, but sometimes those thoughts seem so wild and feral – a whirlpool thrashing, everything spilling over – that the task seems impossible, and I’m left feeling exhausted before anything’s even begun. But even now, as I write this, I feel lighter – like I’m doing something productive and necessary with all of those uncertain things – and I have to remember that this is what it feels like to write. It isn’t work, it’s a release, and a useful one.