worse version of self

As I was unloading the dishwasher yesterday, a task I had put off all day, I wondered with annoyance how many times I'd put away my white plates, bowls and mugs.  I wished for magic dishes and clothes that reappear clean and put away where they belong in my home.

My head has been aching for 48 hours and so my home has slipped out of my grasp again, filling every basket with laundry, the floor with grit, every surface with stuff and my mind with the blues.  I can feel myself slipping into the land of blahs, the place of gloom.  The place of failure.  The kind of failure that causes a person to give up and to miss out on the joy of what's in front of her.

When I was younger I would have waited for this feeling to go away.  I would have waited and waited and waited.  As if the magic of the cleaning fairy would arrive while I slept.   I chose to believe that I deserved a rest or that the chores were so overwhelming that I would feel worse if I decided to tackle the mess. 

Now that I am older, I know that the only way out into the bright skies of joy is to get off my rump, ask the Lord for help and do what needs to be done.  To turn off the TV, this computer and to set a timer.

Yes, a timer.  I am nothing but a child in a woman's body. If I play a game with myself I can trick myself into doing what needs to be done.  I look around and decide on a time. I say 10-15 minutes in one section of the house.  Then I move clockwise through the space and do NOT allow distractions to enter my space.

So today I'm starting to see a glimmer of hope as the third load of laundry goes into the blessed machine and the cleaning fairy does arrive to drag me back to the light.  All along she's been here, she's me.