piles, piles, everywhere are piles

October is over. I feel like skywriting that across the clouds. It was a tough, tough month on multiple levels, but November is here! The slate is clean, although nothing else is. Now it’s time to face the piles.

I thought I could keep up with the pace of fall and study for four exams, but it didn’t take me too long to realize that the only way to extract an hour or two each night for the books was to forgo those things I normally would do during those hours between the kids’ bedtimes and my own. The piles started to build and they drove me completely nuts, gathering dust in all the corners. But to start them, to even take a few minutes to straighten up a stack or two, would have been a dangerous thing. The hardest part of sitting down to study was the actual sitting down – walking past all the things that needed to be done and then finding a seat among the mess, ignoring its very presence.

So now I have lots of piles, and lots more time to deal with them. Well, maybe not lots – there are plenty of other commitments to keep us occupied. But my evenings are a bit freer, and I’m resisting the urge to be manic about things. When I can break off a few minutes here and there I start, dustcloth in hand, recycling and trash bags at my side. My dresser is clean again, and there’s a book sitting on it. I read for pleasure again, under the covers, until my eyes are tired. It feels heavenly.

There are piles in my head as well, piles and piles of things I’d like to do. Things I’ve been missing, things I’ve wanted to write about here, things I’ve wanted to make and finish around the house. I have to ease back into things slowly, catch my body up to my head. Testing forced me to but blinders on so that all of those other things that occupy my brainspace wouldn’t be a distraction. Let me tell you – that exercise was the hardest by far, way harder than anything I was tested on. My head doesn’t quiet easily, and now that the blinders are back off, there are so many, many things to dabble in and dance around. I don’t want to jump from project to project. I’ve been operating in a mode of focus and finish, and I think it suits me. I feel strong, I feel capable, I feel organized – despite the chaos of the endless piles and piles around my feet.