On inertia

Hello/Bonjour, I like nothing better than to go down through a list, ticking off tasks as I complete them. Or better yet, scribbling through each item, almost but not quite obliterating it. This whole process is so wonderfully satisfying. I have been known to make lists of tasks already completed, just so I could tick them off. But that’s usually on a slow day, when I am scratching around for something to do. Owing to the alchemy of list-making, once I’ve done that, I seem to find tasks that actually do need doing. And so get to make a list for real.

But now… now the lists seem to have taken on a life of their own. They are multiplying and I suspect self organising in the dead of night when no one is looking. They threaten to become unmanageable. So I have created a super master list of all the lists of all the things I have yet to do for pretty much the whole year. It is breathtakingly beautiful to behold in all its wonderful colour-coded glory. And totally terrifying. I promptly shut it in a drawer. Really, it is possible to be too organised.

The other, and perhaps the real, reason I have shut the super master list in a drawer is I seem to have entered an alternative universe where everything is progressing at a snail’s pace. Well, not everything you understand, just those things that I want to tick off now. This minute. I am not a possessor of patience, which is why I find the extortions to “Patientez” on the card machines in shops oddly amusing. And comforting.

You will not be surprised to learn that it’s the bedroom renovation causing most of my frustration. The only thing that went at a satisfying speed was removal of the wallpaper, owing to the damp. And it was because of the damp that it had to be removed in the first place. And those features that I, in my innocence, thought were charming, like the exposed pipework, all the woodwork and the gorgeous fireplace, have done nothing but create work, work and more work. I have yet to pick up a paint brush and tackle the walls. Now, my choice of colour scheme is also causing me disquiet…

Deep sigh.

I have made the courageous decision to focus on doing one thing at a time, to live in the moment, to stop and smell the flowers, and all that. And to trust my design decisions. I have the mid-project blues. They are a real thing.

The Boyfriend says the bedroom renovation is actually going very well… if you like to do things properly.

Argh!

A bientôt