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When

Why is it that
So rarely do I find the clue
That tells me what I should do
Only when it's too late to begin!
 
 
 
"Just as I'm starting to feel like I have things under control, and
enough socal life, this disruption comes in." And then I'd get sick,
and be out of it for a couple days upon returning to Boston, and I'd
fall behind, and I'd never quite catch up.
 
I'm hoping that the time with FEW distractions are helping me learn to
function outside a high pressure environment and to possibly begin
settling into doing the right thing, and not feeling like I'd not
clued in till too late.
 
Perhaps my challenge right now is to find a way for myself when there
ISNT a clear winner for my attention. I don't know if I should work
on work, work on poems, read, vegitate or what. When I pretended you
were my boyfriend, it was always so easy: Any and all time available
with V. was my highest priority. I'd been looking to make someone
the center of my universe, and it was too easy to make it be you. But
things have gone on without relationships for so many years. Perhaps
the message to me is to quit searching for that other person to center
on, and to learn to ACCEPT that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing
what to invest myself in.
 
In the morning waking up
I'm postponing what I fear
Is a return to the treadmill.
I take an extra hour in bed,
To finally psyche myself up
And confront the day
But by then there's so much backlog
That the day is precisely the frenzy
I'd dreaded.
 
Before leaving for work
I plan what to do
And then get sucked into some project.
I have time, right?
I think I do, until the project's done
THEN I remember the other thing
I'd planned or committed to
And the rush to catch it up begins.
 
At work
I can't remember what to do.
So I start something new.
Or I'm overwhelmed with
Interruptions
Or too many committments.
The thing I planned
Never gets done.
I'm never satisfied
That I've accomplished
The most important task.
 
Why is it that just before I'm
Departing to my next obligation
All the things I couldn't think of
When I had time to work on them
Occur to me now.
 
Worse,
Why is NOW the time I remember
The few things that MUST be done
Before I make my departure?
 
In the evenings at home.
I collapse, exhausted, into the easychair.
By the time I've recovered some energy
And remember what I was going to do
It's bed time.
But I've passed through being tired
And into wanting to be active
And accomplish what I'd just remembered.
 
sometimes we are presented with a few little battles
that we need to get right, even in the face of unclear
direction.
 
Discipline, for me,
Is managing to STOP myself
From doing something/anything
For a few minutes
Until I can remember what I planned
And make a thoughtful choice of action.
 



26 December 2000 (unfinished)

by Bill Cattey