The Last Day of the Month

Decades ago, when I lived in Maryland, I was seeing a wonderful therapist/life coach/wise woman named Judy Alexander. I still remember so many of her stunning insights.

One month, when she and I had worked together on various goals I was going to achieve by month's end, I met with her on the 28th of the month and had nothing to report but failure. This particular month was going to be chalked up as a zero.

Judy looked me in the eyes and said, "There's still two more days."

Ooh! I used those two days to accomplish what I hadn't accomplished in the other twenty-eight.

This month I had two major work tasks: 1) revising my forthcoming third-grade-level chapter book, Vera Vance: Comics Star from a second round of editorial comments; and 2) revising my forthcoming academic article, "Trying to Be Good (With Bad Results): The Wouldbegoods, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Ivy and Bean: Bound to be Bad" from a second round of blind-reviewer comments.

I made fairly diligent progress in the second half of November, after recovering from my little granddaughters' ten-day visit in the first part of the month, followed by a delicious short jaunt to Indiana. But as of this morning, neither project was completed.

But as of an hour ago, I had pressed SEND on both of them.

Nothing motivates me like the first day and last day of the month. On the first day, I begin a whole new life! Everything is going to be different this time! I'll be more fit! I'll be more frugal! Above all, I'll be more productive! This is the month those book revisions will get done! This is the month those article revisions will get done! This is the month IT WILL ALL GET DONE!

And then. . . it doesn't... Well, it doesn't until the end of month is staring me in the face, with its now-or-never finality. Then, fortunately, there are still three more days... then two more days... then one more day.

Today was that day. I did what I had set out to do, with time left over to write a blog post to brag about it. And tomorrow a whole new life can - and will - begin.