Useful Distractions

[mrissa]

I'm trying to keep myself from fixating on worrying about Robin. This is going to be a long process; having some worry is going to be normal and necessary, but spending all my time on it will help no one. Unfortunately, before Robin had his accident, I was trying to keep myself from fixating on worrying about Wednesday's appointment with the new vertigo specialist. So I am having to be rather firm with myself about Useful Distractions this week.

Not that I am ever short on potentially Useful Distractions, but they are sometimes more actively distracting than this. They sometimes catch my attention without effort. I feel like I am leading myself very gently around by the hand. "Now you should call your grandparents," I think in the same mental voice as I use out loud with a toddler who isn't sure whether the mittens go on first or the boots. "Now you should take the sheets off the bed. Now you should put them in the washing machine. Now you should start the washing machine." It's not that I'm not capable of mental effort these days: I can get myself to sit down and work on fiction or read something fairly complicated. It's just that I have to be gentle-but-firm internally to get there right now, and fairly specific, or else the brain defaults back to worrying as the main activity.

Edited to add: Please do not take this entry to mean, "Leave mrissa alone!" I don't want to be ignored or treated with kid gloves until we know more about Robin and my vertigo appointment is over. Quite the contrary.