A QUESTION OF BALANCE

On the question of balance, for me it is the essential question.

I am not a person that adopts moderation into her life. Whatever I am doing is all that I am doing. Of course, I can multi-task. Research has shown that women are much better multi-task'ers than men and we have to be or, at times, we choose to be. However, even when I am multi-tasking, my attention is primarily focused on the one all-consuming task while the minor tasks are done mechanically by rote.

This question of balance is more of a problem the more time I have available. When pressed by a work schedule, appointments, obligations, and recreational plans, I have to relent to the clock and the calendar and I do multi-task at times. It is when I have the freedom to stay in my tunnel-vision world with one all-consuming task that balance becomes non-existent.

Even now with about 45 minutes of free time, I find myself engrossed in trying to figure out the perfect word, re-checking my punctuation, and staring deeply into the computer screen in front of me visualizing the finished blog entry. If I would move along and just get the damn thing written, I would have time to get something else done in this 45 minute pause in my day. That, I think, is what a person who understands the need for a balance of activity in her day would do. I say that with the certainty that children have when they can only imagine what a grown-up might do.

This summer, it looks like I might have more free time than I can deal with productively. I have several tasks: hustling money to carry me through to fall, finishing my novel that I'm convinced will be finished before the next frost, doing arts and crafts to keep me creative and for charitable work, and maintaining my house and yard more successfully than I have in the past several months.

The rational part of me suggests that I need A Plan. For example, I could block out times for these pursuits on a calendar. The part of me that knows me best knows that itself might be a waste of time. Those blocks of time will be contingent on what the hot topics are on The View, what my grandchildren want to do, and which of those legitimate and necessary pursuits blocked out on the calendar take over parts of the calendar that they are not entitled to according to The Plan.

I have A Plan for my garden. Within that plan, I have an area that perennials are allowed to take over in any way they choose. The area is right in the middle of the garden but the perennials are not to go too far north or too far south. In fact, one of my activities this summer will be to put some clear restraints on the heather that threatens to take over the entire garden if it is permitted.

Perhaps I need to block out some time in The Plan on my calendar for my perennial life. The perennials in my life are habits I'm not likely to change, people too precious to exclude from my calendar, and impulses that threaten to take over my entire life if permitted. My perennials are essential in my life just as they are in my garden. I just need to maintain them in their special place in the center of my life, encourage their continued growth, but just not too far south or too far north.

That might not be exactly what grown-ups do, but its my crayola version of balance.