I'm swamped today. Absolutely gagging with work. That's a nice visual image, huh? It's all really interesting work and projects that I love, but my to-do list is longer than my arm at this point. The source of much of this swampage isn't even work related. I have a wedding to plan (just over three months left, and still so much to do!) working out to do, volunteering to kick up, doctors' appointments to attend, and vacation to book at some point. Right now, I have enough to do to keep me busy for the next week solid, sans bathroom breaks or snacks or naps. So guess what I'm doing? I'm writing a blog post. The very least important thing on my itinerary. And not a particularly compelling blog post at that.

I'm ostriching. Burying my head in the sand instead of doing what I should be doing, which is, ummm, trying to plow my way through the approximately 14,302 items written in my day planner today. I'm not kidding:



It's not like I have a shortage of things to do. But rather than dive in, I'm completely wasting my time and feeling a knot of dread twisting tighter and tighter in my stomach. Unfinished work and unmet deadlines are looming and I cannot push myself to just. get. started. When I feel overwhelmed, this is my coping mechanism: pretending I have absolutely nothing to do and acting otherwise. If I really looked at my to-do list and looked at the clock (3:50pm) and THOUGHT about how dire things are, I'd probably have a breakdown. By avoiding reality I'm in a bit of a happy bubble. A fluffy cloud of lies is still a fluffy cloud, kids. Fluff > Reality.

Now I'm going to grab a green tea, slip on my headphones, select some getting-shit-done music, and very calmly, very carefully, start to pick my way through my list of things to do. I'm trying a new approach. It's called acting, not thinking. If it fails, I go back to ostriching. Maintaining my sanity is the key.