Devonne Brown

Putting it off…

Once, I was a fashion plate. I dressed in incredible clothes that I designed and made myself. I’d stay up into the wee hours sewing complicated patterns with facings, buttons, zippers, lots of handwork, and they were amazing. Designer clothes. Beautiful work.

When I got pregnant with twins, that shit stopped cold with their baby quilts. I wasn’t organized enough to burp and bathe babies while deep ditching needles around zippers. Pins, scissors, and babies seemed like a dangerous dynamic. Pins, scissors, and twin toddler sewing lessons was never going to happen. That wasn’t a battle I picked. I didn’t need that stressor. If I couldn’t be Ralph Lauren or Versace, I didn’t want to fool with sewing. It hurt too bad.

My boys are gone now. No twins to worry about stepping on pins, although the dog took off with a loaded pin cushion last time I sewed, and I have curtains to make. They aren’t serious curtains. They are four panels that need to be hemmed. Each panel of drapery needs a straight seam around the edge to keep the fabric from raveling.  Four seams, one go round per panel. Including ironing time, the whole job, two panels, one window, start to finish, if I don’t get up to pee, will take about an hour. 

What’s the problem? 

The mess I create I have to clean up.  I well and truly do not want to begin the avalanche that a good old fashioned curtain-hangin’ makes. According to Elwanda’s Law of Housekeeping, everything’s got to be cleaned before the new curtains go up. Full stop. You can’t hang fresh curtains on old dirt. It’s a crime against some kind of wifery, a serious one. Elwanda Laws are irrefutable because Elwanda was my mom.

I read an article in the New Yorker that pegged me as “barely able to be an adult.”

 “Grow up. Act like an adult. Wash the dishes. Do the laundry. Read the mail. ‘Be done with this day and move on to the next.’ Don’t let stuff linger on your plate,” said dad, preaching to me from his grave. He did the same in life, but he was smoother, less direct, more powerful.   

I don’t do stuff right. No one told me that not doing your dishes immediately would ruin your life. According to the New Yorker, I procrastinate and let dirty dishes and laundry pile up too much, making bigger messes than the original that keep me in circles of widening despair and depression. I don’t take time at the hot moment to do what should be done then. I move on too soon and create issues for myself in the next hours or days, even years to come. 

Sometimes the repercussions have long, long tendrils.

That was one mean article. I took a lot of it personally. Some of it can’t be helped and doesn’t matter at the same time.  I take my meds for my behavior too, thank you very much.

For the new year, I want to do better, and I’ll sling my shit the way I have for the last 63 years, for safety. I am, after all, still alive.  Why would I stop now?  I feel defeated before I even start.

That damned article. Your mission accomplished, my awareness has risen.