March 15, 2002

Posted by on Mar 15, 2002 in General Writing

I did it again; I waited until the last moment.

There was an article deadline for March 15th and although I had begun the article a couple of weeks ago, I really only worked on it yesterday. I was really proud of myself on how hard I actually worked on the article – the editing, the rewriting, making it truthful, making it flow. But after a full day of working on the article, something was still missing and I had run out of steam to figure out what it was.

I decided to just let it sit on the computer and come back to it later on. But later on I ended up having class and then came home more tired than before. Needless to say, I didn’t work on the article.

The next day, I woke up and almost immediately began to work on the article again. I had both the fear of missing the deadline (since it had to be post marked today) and the anger that I had waited until the last minute. With all this tension going on in my brain, I wasn’t writing well. The writing was jumpy, scattered, and hostile. My emotions were of course coming across the page, and I had to figure out how to change my attitude.

I felt that I couldn’t change the fact that today was March 15th and my article was due. All I could do was to know better next time. I got over myself and finished the article, satisfied with both what I’d written and myself.

The next task was to get it to the post office. It was so windy the rain was coming down sideways, it was definitely mitten weather, the post office was over two miles away and I didn’t have a car. As the wind howled through my flat, I debated whether or not I should attempt going out into such nastiness.

Then I asked myself how much the article meant to me.

A lot, I decided. I had worked hard on it, I liked it, and I thought it had a good chance of getting published. Was I going to let some weather keep me from following through? No, I decided, that’s one of the stupidest reasons to fail yet.

I bundled up into a million layers and headed to the post office. At the counter I handed my envelope to the clerk and asked her if it would be post marked today.

“Yes,” she said, “you just made it.”

Yes I did, I thought, smiling.