Moose in the Kitchen

An object in motion stays in motion. An object on the couch stays on the couch.

I never was any good at physics.

I was born with the habits of a stern governess, one who would not have been out of place in pre-WWII Germany, whipping recalcitrant charges as her mustache ruffled in the breeze. I did my homework each night and, not only that, I did it as soon as I got home. (Obviously, my braces, cheap jeans, and stellar discipline made me the most popular girl in middle school.) I clearly remember being in seventh grade and hearing the mother of a friend congratulate me on finishing my homework so quickly. “My daughter bounces up and down, always getting up for a snack or trying to watch TV.” My only thought was, “You’re allowed to DO that?” Clearly, I’m not a renegade thinker. Procrastination had simply NEVER OCCURRED TO ME. The next night, I experimented. I got up in the middle of a science problem and did something else. For five whole minutes. The universe did not come crashing to a halt. And a dangerous seed was planted.

Last July, I quit my job to freelance full time. I am very proud of myself for doing this, because it’s a step toward a life based more on what I do than where I am for eight hours a day. Especially since “where I am” tended to include a lot of fluorescent lighting. Unfortunately, “what I do” seems to be “read novels with towers built of cheese, crackers, and salami balanced precariously on my knees.” You may be astonished to hear this, but there’s not much market for building towers of cheese and salami and then eating them. I know. I’m shocked too. But it was a leap of faith, in myself and in my ability to make something work without any concrete idea of how to do so.

So, yeah. Go me.

Six months later, I’m still struggling with the discipline of being my own boss. I’m a good boss, y’all. Very humane. Good hours, lots of breaks. The problem is, if you don’t HAVE to do something – pitch a story, send a letter of introduction – it’s very easy to ignore your floating commitments in favor of something with more short-term benefits. (See: towers of salami.)

Goals are more compact in high school. If you want to qualify for a good college, you have to do it before you graduate. But as an adult, once you’ve made just enough money to get by, there aren’t that many imposed deadlines outside a work environment. A biological clock ticks, yes. But if you want to, say, write a novel? You basically have until you die. Only then is it too late. Since I have (I assume) a good 60 years before I go, WHAT PRECISELY IS MY RUSH?

Such thinking breeds a certain malaise. And I don’t particularly like myself lazy. A day or two of lazy is essential to good health; a month and a half of lazy is asking to be homeless. Which causes considerable difficulty in the Making Yourself an Egg Salad Sandwich department because cardboard boxes don’t have stoves. In the general scheme of life, love, and the pursuit of actual happiness, it doesn’t really matter whether or not I achieve Masterful Ambition Take Your Pick. It just matters that I work toward it.

Habit changing is a slow process, one I always try to speed up by DOING IT ALL RIGHT NOW. Which inevitably leads to shivering in the corner and wondering why the walls are full of dancing toasters in checkered aprons. My current goal is to write every day. (I was going to add “eat more vegetables” to the list, but that felt like pressing my luck. Besides, leafy greens tend to wilt, while cheese, if properly wrapped in plastic, lasts for weeks.) So far, I’ve written every day. SUCCESS, YOU TASTE SO SWEET. Sure, it’s only been for, what, two weeks? BUT THAT COUNTS. And today, instead of mooching around until 11 a.m. like usual, I’m doing this.

I feel 100 percent more awesome. Like a rock star wearing sweatpants and a light dusting of Cheeto crumbs.