The Road Much Traveled

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Here I am sitting in front of my laptop privately cursing another lost opportunity to get in a run—and it’s only 5:30 in the morning.

Such have been my weeks for a while now, and I am suspecting the pattern isn’t breaking any time soon. I get up at all hours for what I consider important work—the freelance stuff that helps pay the bills and keep me sharp. (Well, as sharp as you can be at 4 in the morning.) Then there’s my position at a non-profit, which is threatened by the state due to California’s budget crisis. And this time it truly is a crisis if voters want to throw the elderly with dementia effectively out on the street, and right now they do. If I am up all night worrying, I cannot imagine what the families of our Alzheimer’s patients must be thinking.

Meantime, daily living lacks its usual diversity. Calories get consumed but no longer counted. The gym bag remains in the bedroom corner. Laundry piles up, as do dust and bills, and my car is starting to resemble my closet.

So today is my deadline to get my act together. Today I will truly catch up on projects and tonight I will put some order and lemon oil to this house. Tomorrow morning I will go for a run and make it to yoga and not burn through that hour at home, hunched over my computer. We will not be late for a birthday party in Mission Beach, and I will not sit through Sunday night’s play at The Old Globe preoccupied with everything I failed to accomplish over the weekend.

There, I said it. Now, I need to just do it.

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