Getting focused takes time. In my case I had the pleasure of distraction to keep me occupied and not write a blog post. Four months of distraction.
My son and his wife moved. My husband and I participated in packing, moving, unpacking, painting and often were the clean-up crew. By choice.
I made the decision to make a change in employment. At age 60 I can do this and I can call it retirement. It doesn’t mean I no longer wish to earn an income. I knew it was time to focus on writing and get back to splashing some color on a canvas and I haven’t figured out the details of income just yet. I’m going to avoid that topic for now.
Kind of like I’ve been avoiding the urge to write here. It seems like the more I’ve been busy getting connected with writer conferences and other writers, the more I realize I’m exposing myself, the more my nervous system has kicked in, AKA fear.
The more nervous I’ve become, the more I’ve found to do elsewhere such as the home renovation projects that line a full page of paper my husband and I have posted on the kitchen cupboard – all color coded with dates attached as to when they will be done.
In perfect timing, friends that were planing to come to visit this spring decided to arrive just one full week after my last bit of employment ended. I spent a week cleaning my own home and prepping for guests. We had 10 great days with them and then I had to face my avoidance again.
So what did I do? I began to paint the walls in what we call our sunroom. This was stage two of the renovation in that room. Stage one was re-insulation of the ceiling and addition of new ceiling tiles. I was the helper and my husband was the general manager, contractor and construction labor person.
The sunroom is where my acrylic paint supply live, where all my writing instruction books hang out and where the collection of books I like to read and won’t throw away gather on the book shelves. Everything needed to be sorted, cleaned, rearranged and taken out of the room for the walls to be painted. Then the whole room needed to be put together again. That was a job worthy of several days of avoidance.
And then my flower and veggie garden need constant tending. The garden is my best go to place to putter and bury my fears. Flowers, color explosions to admire, pots to rearrange and weeds to pull all serve to allow my mind to wander, dream and create.
I spent an eight hour day last weekend soaking up my inner calm, in the garden. In the make up of who I am, things seem to need to be in order inside before I can take a step forward in a new direction. Inside also means my outside surroundings. I suppose that is what I’ve been doing with all this avoidance – just getting ready.
Ready. Moving forward.
Living in Truth 
Val, you are welcome anytime to do “avoidance” at my house! Myself, I avoid the painting tasks as if it was a plague.
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Thanks for reading and responding Rose. Perhaps my new career can be organization and etc, at other peoples homes whilst I ponder on what to write next.
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