Anti-Procrastination--and a story

I wrote this yesterday, but did not post it because I wanted the Princess Penny auction to have center stage. : )  Doesn't matter--it is just as relevant today, as you will see!

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It's Wednesday, and that means the weekly Anti-Procrastination Day.

And this week, I mean business.

Just recently I realized how much mental baggage I am carrying around with me daily from things undone that I really want/need done.  They are a drain on my thinking, and when I let them go too long they start to drag at my spirit.  There was something in particular that had been on my to-do list since my big GET IT DONE push this past Spring--and one week ago I still had not done it.  And since telling you all about this is one more thing I have been meaning to do for some time, this is the perfect day to do so!

You see, our neighbors on one side of us had a little dog named Willa, who for a while kept escaping from their yard, and running away down our busy road.  Of course any time we heard them calling for her we would go help look--that's what neighbors do!  But then they must have figured out where she was getting out and fixed the problem, because months went by without a single escape, and thus without us really interacting with them. 

But during those months our neighbors (who were living together but not married) went through a bad relational spell, and were fighting all the time.  And the woman was a yeller.  Our house is only about 5 feet from their house, and our walls are thin--we couldn't hear most of the words (although often we could) but we could hear the raging and miserable voices rising and falling, and things slamming and banging.  Sometimes I was really concerned that she was going to make him so mad he would  hurt her, because she was truly a shrieking harpy, attacking him, tearing him apart.  It was really ugly.  Sometimes they would start in yelling and the kids would be lying in bed listening to it for over an hour as they were trying to fall asleep.  I didn't know what to do about it--so we would just put on music, or talk to the kids about sin and how it consumes us and hurts our relationships if we let it, and pray for the neighbors.

I think they knew we could hear them.  They probably heard me yell at the kids enough to know how sound carries between our houses (I often find myself yelling to the kids to do/stop doing X, Y or Z while I am standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes before dinner--the place closest to their house where the sound probably travels the best.  I love being such a great example of parenting to the world. Sigh.).   And I know the woman at least felt badly about it--because one day this past Spring as we were sitting quietly schooling in the living room, the girls saw Willa running down the road again.  Of course I ran over to knock on the neighbor's door to tell her, and was thankful that they were home.  The neighbors went searching, and found her within 10 minutes--ironically in our backyard (she must have run through a different neighbors yard down the road and then backtracked up the creek).  So, it was all over very quickly, and was not really that big of a deal.

But then half an hour later, there was a knock on our door, and there stood the neighbor lady, with a large gift bag in her hand.  She wanted to thank us for what great neighbors we are, and of course I just said that's what neighbors do, but then she apologized for how they were not great neighbors, and the way she said it I knew she meant the fighting.  So she and I made it a quick and slightly awkward but friendly exchange.   Once inside, we opened the gift bag to find a large plastic tub of craft bits (with a $30 price tag on the bottom!) for the kids.  And then there was also a card for me--the wording of which confirmed my suspicion that this gift was given more as an apology than a thank-you.  Inside the card was a gift certificate to a local upscale kids/home boutique--for the amount of $300.  Yes, three hundred dollars. 

Of course I flipped out a little, and thought we can't accept this!  It was clearly a guilt offering.  Accepting it would be like taking blood money, a bribe to keep our eyes averted from the carnage.  But yet. . . I thought about the few exchanges I had earlier with this neighbor, who had lived next to us for about one year.  How I took her some fresh picked strawberries, and she brought over a rainbow-maker for the kids' window.  How I took her some fresh picked tomatoes, and she brought over a potted orchid for my kitchen windowsill.  Gift-giving seems to be one of her main love languages, as it is one of mine.  I thought about how I would be feeling if I was in her place--probably being really hard on myself for how poorly I was reacting to the conflict between me and my partner, and then also feeling so guilty for not being able to stop it, even if I knew it was negatively affecting others.  I would be feeling really vulnerable, and wanting to be accepted and loved and forgiven.  If gift giving is really one of her love languages, then giving back the gift would be like rejecting her love--and being critical not only of her in her weakness, but also of her attempts to make things right!

But I also felt badly keeping it.  It was just so over-the-top.  Finally, I decided we would use some of it to buy something fun or useful for our family, and with some of it I would try to buy something little and meaningful for the neighbor as a thank you back, and then the rest of it I would ask the store if we could break up into two separate gift certificates, like $100 each.  I can then give those to our local Crisis Pregnancy Center for a silent auction they have coming up--using this woman's love offering to spread even more love around our community. 

But most importantly, I needed to give the neighbor a big THANK YOU that would show her the forgiveness and acceptance and love I think she wished for.

But.  This is where perfectionism and life got the best of me.  Because  this happened right in the middle of all the stressful, busy, overwhelming season I had this past Spring, and I had in my head the "right" way to say thank you (for the kids to make a rainbow craft from some of the goodies from the big jar the neighbor had given them, because we know she likes rainbows) but that ended up being just one more thing to do and our weeks were already so full, and to also invite the neighbor over for tea and some "girlfriend" chat, because maybe God wanted me to minister to her heart with some loving, encouraging words, but my house was such a wreck and I was such a wreck and so I kept thinking I would get everything "right" and then take over the thank you/invite the next week. . . .  And I kept meaning to, and meaning to.

Finally, I decided the Week Without Children would be a good time for uninterrupted, adult conversation, and made up an invitation for tea in my kitchen and asked her to contact me to arrange it at her convenience.  I waited until after the mail carrier had come by, and then walked over and slipped it into their mailbox with the other letters.  And never heard from her.

But then about 2 weeks ago I started to notice some things were different over there.  Our houses are very close together, but their front entry and driveway are on the other side from us, with tall privacy fences in between, so we really don't see the neighbors coming or going or notice what they are about unless they come over to the far side of their back deck, which overlooks our yard.  But I started to notice all the usual things from the deck weren't there any more.  I didn't hear the neighbors as much (the terrible fighting stopped shortly after the big gift, so maybe the two are connected--I don't know), and somehow the house just started to seem less occupied. So on July 30 in the evening I asked DH to walk over and peek into their windows (looking through their front fence into the big picture window in their living room--not being a peeping tom, because anyone could do this just walking by) to see if he saw anything amiss. And he came back and reported that it looked like they were moving, as most of their furniture was gone.  And he suggested that since the next day was the last day of the month, they would probably finish moving their stuff out that next day.

Ack!  No more time to procrastinate!  So the next morning I wrote out the thank-you note I should have written months earlier, and ran over and taped it to their gate.  Then the girls all sat at the kitchen table and made the sweetest big rainbow out of heavy cardstock and tissue paper and colorful embellishments and cotton ball clouds and a big red heart.  It took all day (except for lunch and some errands), and we finished right before having to leave for swimming lessons at 5pm.  It was still tacky with glue, but I was worried the neighbors would come and get the last load of stuff in the driveway before we got back from swimming.  And my timing was perfect, because when I ran over, there was a friend of theirs loading up the stuff from the driveway, and so he opened the garage so I could put the art in it by the very last load they would come back for (and I taped the thank you note on the back).  I am sure now they must have received it.   

I also found out from the friend that they only moved across the creek!  So they are still very near, and so I have hopes that the woman will contact me and say yes to my invitation, which I repeated in the thank you  note.

We'll see.  It's possible that my months of delay acknowledging the extravagant gift hurt her feelings and put a wedge between us.  It's possible she wants a clean break from their rough relational patch while living next door to us, and getting together with me would seem to defeat that.  It's possible she does not want to talk about anything personal, and fears I would want to.  None of this matters.  I thanked, I invited, we crafted and gifted.  I did what I needed to do to get the weight of the undone off my shoulders.

And it feels sooooooo good! 

Once the art and note were delivered, I felt free.  Spiritually so much lighter.  I did not realize how much weight just that one big undone thing carried.  I think it weighed so heavily because it involved the feelings of another person--and me imagining the unlove I might be causing that person to feel, which led me to feel guilty.  I have to remind myself that I did not ask for the overwhelming gift, it came at a really bad time, and I did not handle it like I should have, but it is over now.  DONE.  I refuse to carry any lingering remorse or guilt about it.  I will do what I intended with the gift certificate, and then that will be done too.  I even just got a notice that the charity auction is coming up, and the timing could not be better. And when I go shopping with the remainder, I will allow myself to enjoy it, and be thankful.  : )  I will be blessed by it and pray God blesses my former neighbor too.

But the huge release I have already experienced just from delivering the art and note leads me to think--what else have I been dragging my feet on that is a huge burden in my life/heart/house/thinking/energy/spirit?  I want to seek out those things and GET THEM DONE.  I have enough to worry about in every day--I don't want excess!

So even before I got out of bed this morning I thought about the things that I wanted/needed to do, the things that seemed most urgent or that I was spending too much time thinking about.  I'm making my list--and this time I'm not going to list everything, but just a few specific things, and then just get them done.

I meant to start today.  But this is a "summer school" week and my kids are choosing poorly and yesterday they did not get their (minimal) work done and I am finding I have to stay on top of them today (i.e. hang out here in the living room where they are working) to keep them focused and choosing well.  So, I could feel defeated before even starting my Anti-procrastination push.  But I'm just choosing instead to be happy for lots of blogging time today, and make firm goals for the big push.  I hope to blog more specifically about it tomorrow--and will let you know when I'm starting, in case you want to jump in the fun with me!  We can encourage one another! 

Happy Wednesday Thursday everyone!