“...examines the complex relationship between the practical and the passionate self, the realist and the dreamer, and the importance of those moments in life that make you feel 'airborne.'”
—Erin Kodicek
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Jan 2010
I posted this on Psychology Today earlier this week and would love to hear if anyone relates to it....Let me know: apogrebin@gmail.com
The difficulty is in beginning.
That’s what I struggle with. There are so many things I kick myself for not starting: reading a book in the afternoon instead of just at night when I’m fighting sleep, looking daily at the websites I enjoy the most (besides psychologytoday.com, I like propublica.org, bookslut.com, thedailybeast.com, tabletmag.com), visiting the Metropolitan Museum instead of just passing it almost daily in a taxi, volunteering at the organizations to which I regularly write checks, picking up Spanish again so all those years didn’t go to waste (and so I can chat with my kids, who are learning it), picking up Hebrew again so all those years didn’t go to waste (could I really have been conversant in Israel when I went after graduation? – I can barely grunt in the language now), go back to spinning class (those pricey clip-on sneakers taunt me from my closet floor), find easy weekday recipes to vary our family dinners, update the photo albums (iPhoto stopped me from printing any pictures—they just amass there, dazzling in their memories, overwhelming in their number), blog more (I over-edit, which paralyzes me), start keeping a journal again (I recorded my life between ages 8-28 – I know, that’s a lot of navel-gazing -- and then stopped writing after getting married sixteen years ago; I can’t remember why. Because it suddenly felt unnecessary now that I had a partner to whom I confided everything? Because it felt wrong to keep a book my husband shouldn’t see? Surely there was/is still a proper place to put my private wrestling and occasional angst. Maybe I stopped because I was superstitious that chronicling happiness would jinx it?)
The larger point is that I get stuck in the thought of embarking. I can’t leave the dock. If I was already into the routine, I’d be glad I was in it and probably forget the faltering launch. But getting over the hurdle of beginning somehow holds me back, makes me think, “It’s too late already – I should have done this long ago, so why bother now?”
And yet, when I think of the things I have started, it makes me realize that they were new at one point, too, and now they’re integrated, habitual, effortless. For instance, I always wanted to have a weekly “New York Date” with my ten-year-old daughter (some excursion oriented to culture or food). We finally inaugurated the tradition this fall and we’ve already enjoyed seven outings: she chose the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit at the Whitney one Wednesday, I chose a homemade pretzel bakery another; you get the idea. Molly has already started keeping a scrapbook with ticket stubs and napkins from each outing.
Another example: my interfaith Genesis discussion group is now in its fourth year, but I remember mulling that idea for years before I finally put it into motion; now even the snacks are routine.
What else do I do regularly that I remember saying, “I should really do this?”
Three times a year I have a boozy dinner with two great moms from my son’s class.
I now ride a scooter to do errands around the neighborhood with my twelve-year-old son.
I finally went to my first vegetable chopping marathon at God’s Love We Deliver and plan to return to their bottomless vats of onions very soon.
That’s not to pat myself on the back for charity work long overdue. It just proves that it’s possible to get over the not-having-done-it and start it.
All those beginnings are already in past, not “beginnings” anymore; in other words, the “hard first step” doesn’t last very long before it’s old-hat.
And yet I’m still irritatingly aware that I don’t retain the ease of that leap --from new to normal. Those many projects still un-begun continue to loom large. It’s the starting that always stops me.
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