Indecisive

Come on, Ma, in or out?

I am used to being a fairly decisive person. Once I make a decision, it's made and I don't feel the need to revisit it. I also tend to make decisions fairly quickly. There's no point in drawing out the process. I just evaluate the pros and cons and go with whichever one is objectively better.

Basically, I'm a satisficer, and I'm perfectly happy with good enough.

Which is why my current inability to make a decision is driving me batty.

You see, I am at the moment only writing for two of my blogging clients. But I have promised the rest (about four) that I will return to work as of early November.

I am also putting together a pitch for another finance book for my editor, working on a novel I abandoned a few years ago, and trying to keep up my writing for this blog so that BB does not feel slighted in my less obsessive detailing of his childhood as compared to that of LO.

Oh, yeah, and I'm caring for a newborn.

My plate=invisible under mound o' stuff.

The thing is, with the exception of caring for said newborn, every single item on my above list is optional. We're in a place financially wherein we can afford for me to take a few months away from paid writing. My clients have made it very clear that there will be a place for me whenever I'm ready to come back to work. My big projects can certainly wait.

But...I kind of miss my work and I feel great on days when I do a little writing.

But...I feel overwhelmed on days when I need to get an article done and BB has decided that my completely motionless lap is the only place where he will deign to rest his keppy.

But...I haven't written for some of these clients since April, and I hate that I have moved back my return date again and again.

And so my interior argument with myself goes.

The problem is the fact that I work from home. If I had a traditional job, I'd have no issue whatsoever with taking time off. (I would take the HELL out of that time off!) But since I can theoretically get work done while BB naps or after both boys go to bed, then I feel like I must.

Since I cannot seem to make a decision, I am rapidly approaching the point in time when it would be unprofessional for me to renege on my November promise (and in fact, I may have already passed through the unprofessional event horizon).

And of course, that realization sets me off once again on the merry-go-round of no decision yet.

Thankfully, despite this malfunction in my decider lobe, the issue is not life or death. It's not even groceries-or-heat.

It's just a standard issue inability to reconcile my need to please with my need for meaningful work with my need to be fully present for LO and BB with my need for rest.

Or, you know, modern motherhood.