It's Not Procrastination. It's a Metaphor.

Saydung89 via Pixabay

  Every once in a while, I write a post that can go either here or over at Porch Swing Chronicles. I posted this one there last week, and thought I'd share it here as well.

 When it comes to packing, I'm a procrastinator. Since my reluctance to actually put things into suitcases sometimes works to my advantage, I've shrugged it off as a workable, if less than ideal, state of affairs. It was only recently, when a sense of frustration descended on me as I was packing for vacation twelve hours before our departure (as usual), that I realized it's not a packing problem at all.

It's an abundance problem. 

Vacation creates a sense of possibility. Vacation means breaking from routine, going somewhere new (or old if you, like me, have a much-loved vacation spot to which you regularly return), and letting go of daily obligations. All of these inspire a feeling of abundance -- abundance of time and of opportunity. Vacations open doors. Packing closes them before we even get to the threshold.

At home, I can choose to wear anything in my closet on any given day. I can read any book on my shelves, or even order a new one if the ones I own don't inspire me. I can decide to play the piano I've ignored for months, pick up an old hobby that I stashed away in a closet, or change my mind and clean out that closet if I'm so inclined.

How do I narrow down all the options, especially if I'm headed for a week away where, by definition, I can do whatever I want to do?

What will I want to do tomorrow, the next day, five days from now? And what will I need to wear? How can I possibly prepare adequately for any of this?

Shut the suitcase, folks, and put it back in the closet. This is just too hard.

The combination of narrowing the possibilities to a serviceable number while still keeping my options open (and fitting it all into appropriately sized containers) is more than my limited cognitive resources can manage. 

In the end, it's good, old-fashioned cognitive dissonance. Vacation creates a mindset that anything is possible; packing for vacation means foreclosing on those possibilities, or risking being unprepared and not taking full advantage of a window of opportunity that opens much too infrequently.

So, there you have it. It's not just procrastination. It's also a metaphor for trying to cram as much stuff as possible into a finite amount of space and time. 

Procrastination is sneaky that way. It looks like one thing on the surface when really, it's about much more. 

In the end, no matter how I try to make sense of it, trying to corral abundance into the smallest number of containers possible is an impossible task, as is trying to predict every situation for which I need to prepare (that's also a Mom thing, but that's an entirely different post). And I usually figure all of this out.

About twelve hours before we have to leave.