A New Year's Tale :-)

Ah, a new year, a fresh start, a resurrection of old resolutions with a few new ones thrown in, yes, that was my plan. But as we know man plans and God laughs and chaos is my middle name. I wish I could say no when someone offers me a new project, an exciting opportunity, or a crazy idea, but I live for that kind of stuff.. which is how I find myself in my current situation.

My tragic flaw is ergophobia, a fear of work. Frankly, it terrifies me--which explains my pathological procrastination. In my heart, I believe that all things will magically erase themselves from my to-do list if I just ignore them--and half the time they do. When that doesn't happen I wait until the last possible moment before allotting exactly the right amount of time to knock it out. This only works in theory since I fail to account for life getting in my way...

It started in December when I was on my computer and a tiny black hummingbird started zipping back and forth in front of my eye, literally IN my eye. How did a hummingbird get in my eye? He was cute, but incredibly annoying, so I called my ophthalmologist who explained that this was normal for a person over 55 and how I could expect light flashes as well. He insisted that I make appointments two weeks apart to make sure my retina wasn't torn. Sigh.

In the meantime, I had volunteered to take on three new projects, organize a monthly protest, write several letters to the editor, as well as a lengthy article; I  had a huge New Year's Day brunch to cook for, a potluck dinner and a potluck lunch; I had to finish an old project, start a new project and schedule my oral surgery.

Yes, after canceling the appointment three times, I finally scheduled my oral surgery to fix two problems. It wouldn't drop off my to-do list no matter how hard I tried, so I had to do it. To prepare, I picked up 6 (!) prescriptions from the pharmacy and made a chart as to when to take each one, It was complicated and was giving me a knot in my stomach. On top of that, my elderly father had fallen and broken a hip and was recovering at a nearby rehab center. We had hired an aide to stay with him, to make our lives easier, but I was constantly getting calls and texts about him. I'd just sorted out my meds when the aide called crying about the awful rehab people and then the other phone rang and it was the angry rehab people complaining about the troublesome aide.  

It made me laugh to picture their screaming match in the middle of the rehab, but I kept that to myself and calmed them down.

Today, I'm out of commission, oral surgery making me woozy and puffing up my cheeks. I'm eating squishy foods around the stitches in my mouth and icing my face with ice packs. There is good news though. I'm making no plans, taking on no new projects. Instead, I'm binge-watching shows on Netflix, but, luckily, I'm not alone. I have my hummingbird to keep me company.