P is for

pain.

I've had a nagging discomfort for the past week: what felt like a periodic light electrical shock in my neck and jaw -- okay, a pain the neck. Then it disappeared on Thursday. Coincidently that's the day I dealt with and finalized some tax stuff I'd been shuffling around my desk for weeks. It would appear that, for me, pain and procrastination go together.

And yesterday I tackled what passes for my inbox. It would be better called my underbox along with its imaginary complement: my out from under box. I tend to stash inconsequential things in the former with the vague promise to sort through them later. When the pile reaches critical mass, I am forced to confront it. Notice that I didn't say there was anything critical in that mass.

Today that box is clear (again) except for three pieces of coorespondence; most of the other papers are sorted but still strewn across my dining table. At least after hours of messy, dusty purging and filling the recycling bin, I'm down to what either stays or gets further weeded when I file or put them into dedicated binders. Each pile represents a category that I can work with and I've already made strides by putting one reference category into its own binder ("...where it belongs.," conventional wisdom says with a weary shake of the head). Better than that, I swapped the small over-stuffed binder for a larger one that was practically empty. Duh.

So, pain-free and making strides, I'm dealing with so much that accumulated here following my mother's death: the stuff of my own life and the additions from hers, some of which have been emotionally burdensome. Slowly I've been going through each item and piece of paper brought back last summer, few of which had deadlines so they've just weighed on me. Add to that whatever of my own that I brushed aside during that time, often because I simply had no energy to cope with it. That's the way of mourning amidst the tasks of everyday living, but I can see daylight in more ways than one. Like my neck pain vanishing, life is feeling lighter now as well.

My thoughts are with those bearing up under the weight of their own losses.