Scratching An Itch

I have had an itch.

It needs to be scratched.

Unfortunately, there is only one person who can do said scratching.

Me.  

*sigh*

Yep.  Me, myself and nobody else.  

See the dilemma?  No?  

Okay.  Let me see if I can explain.

It's not an easy living with an itch like this one.  It creeps up on you at the oddest, and sometimes most awkward, of times: driving to work ... eating lunch with co-workers ... standing in the produce section of the supermarket ... walking the dog ... even in the middle of the night when waking up and needing to visit the ... um ... well ... you get my drift.  At any moment of any day (or night), the itch can tickle, taunt, make a person crazy with need to scratch it.  Just a mere mention of "coulda/woulda/shoulda" causes this itch to flair and the need for satisfaction is unbearable. 

However, it's not always that easy to relieve.  

Certainly, it can not be done while driving or walking, let alone while standing in the produce section.  That would not only be inappropriate, it would/could also be intensely dangerous.  Then there is the rudeness factor while eating lunch with other people.  I suppose it could be taken care of in the middle of the night, but there is a coherency factor that needs to be taken into account.

So I have lived with this itch, finding relief in occasional snatches, brief respites.  Not every day and not completely satisfying, but I thought it was enough.  I thought that I could live with momentary appeasement.  

I was wrong.

As time passed, I knew it wasn't really enough.  I knew I had to have more.  So I plotted and planned the best way to derive the most pleasure.  Yet the decisions on the time and place to scratch my itch suddenly consuming and the plotting and the planning began to take on more importance than the actual act.  Pressure began to mount.  I began to procrastinate and ignore both the planning AND the need to scratch my itch.

And trust me when I say ... I could be the Queen of the Land of Procrastinators.  Especially when I am faced with an internal struggle of the personal type such as the one taking place in my brain.

My plan was to scratch my itch on New Year's Day.  It seemed appropriate to find the relief I sought at the beginning of a new year.  But then, well, I already noted my descent into pressure and procrastination.  

So, it is that it has taken twelve days for me to move forward, to put aside the plotting and the planning, and to simply ... scratch my itch.

Scratch out these words ... on this proverbial "paper" ... thereby alleviating my itch, my desire, my need to write down my thoughts where they can be read by people other than me.  To take the scribbles that have collected on the backs of napkins, on grocery receipts, in the notes column of my work calendar, on the back burner of my brain and put them together in a cohesive manner on a regular, or at least semi-regular, basis.  

I used to enjoy writing my scribbles and sharing my thoughts.  Sometimes we blame "real life" taking over as the reason we stop doing something we love, when in actuality it is we ourselves who have given up for whatever reason.   I gave up.

Now I'm taking back what I enjoy and scratching my itch ... this is just the beginning.