To Decide or Not to Decide...

I can't decide. I will do anything not to decide. I will spend money I don't have, borrow time better spent on other more necessary tasks, and strain my voice as I wander around talking to all and sundry--any stranger will suffice--about what I should do.

On different days, it is different things I can't decide upon, but whatever it is, large or small, matters of life and death, or just simple questions of what to wear or what to eat for lunch, it cannot be decided without a quorum.

It can be draining, certainly for my husband, who is nearly always consulted, and for the friends and family who still take my calls and e-mails, even for the neighborhood at large. There are a fair number of people in the vicinity of my apartment who have been pressed unwittingly into service to help me decide. I see them on subsequent occasions and recognize "the look." It is fear, panic even. As they pass, quickly, sometimes with a wave-off, they often make excuses for where they have to be as I near, cross the street even if they think I haven't seen them. I don't blame them. After all, I am avoiding me myself, avoiding listening to my own excuses and explanations. If I can't convince myself, maybe I can convince others, I think. A stranger often believes I will act instead of just talk, but only once, at most twice. I, of course, know better but I like the look of enthusiasm I see in someone's face as I tell them my ideas anew.

"Good idea!" they'll say.

"Isn't it?" I'll say, as if I haven't told it to a million others, as if I've done anything toward completing the story, book, song, whatever let alone beyond coming up with the idea and a killer beginning.

This weekend, the first following the end of summer, the beginning of school, I am faced with myself and the myriad of tasks I have laid out in a list, in a new academic-year calendar,for myself to complete, in no specific order. I want desperately to reach out to people, personal and professional acquaintances, people who love me or even those who couldn't care less. I want them to tell me what to do first, to tell me how, to make me do it. I know this is impossible, but, like the tales of my own ideas,it it disappointing anew to find out that no one but me can decide, let alone do it.

I have said a lot lately, as if it is an epiphany, that advertising copywriters are the philosophers of our time, the ones who create the aphorisms of our time. Someone I said this to recently stared up to the sky, in thought, and nodded.

"Yah," he agreed, "that's true: Just Do It..."

Right, I thought. Just do it. I would say I'm trying, but am I? I know I'm talking an awful lot about trying. Is it the same? I guess it depends, depends on what it is I want to do, what I need to do. Turns out, only I can decide. Bummer.
I have wasted so much time and I'm looking to waste more. I am afraid.