A cursory Google search suggests that the average human, and I am painfully average, blinks 28,800 times per day. And I find myself musing “blinking time away” as more and more time passes each and every following blink. Hell, I caught myself forgetting to share photos I’ve taken, or poetry I’ve written in January. The new year, such a time to reflect and look forward, snuck up on me and I posted a very short photo recap and labeled it, “I blinked, and January was over.” Not my best work but enough to illicit a few chuckles and a particular comment that has since stuck with me with no actual lasting effect. “Jesus, man. Stop blinking!” A joke for sure but there’s something there, something to learn or realize.

And here we are, in May. Four months later and the lesson remains lost on me. And I share the common excuses. Work is draining, puppy training takes time, dinner, cleaning, loving, planning, financing, vacationing, and on and on the list goes. No different than any other human’s plate, to-do list, registry of worth.

I’ve been wanting to paint since the end of 2022. Told myself once the basement’s finished, which I’ve made progress. But I’m stuck there as well. The kitchen table currently resides, dismantled, in my pre-designated painting space. Easy enough to put back together and return to the kitchen, but alas that is where the dog crate currently rests. Just move the dog crate? Haha, not so simple. My partner and I must decide where we will move the dog crate, the living room or the bedroom. Were it so easy?

Living room: Carpets are missing as the aforementioned dog had some stomach issues, and he much enjoyed ripping one of them apart. Not exactly related to the tummy issues but a slight correlation. If we get the carpets, we will have to move the too-heavy table which takes more than just us. Not to mention choosing a carpet aesthetic. We have friends but they don’t help with the fact that the chairs are somehow loose? For some reason they wobble now, they didn’t the past four months.

Bedroom: The bedroom is home to all manner of sock, shoe, and bra. A proverbial puppy playground. So, before we move him up there, we’d have to commit to cleaning that, and of course the kicker being keeping it clean. So, bedroom gets cleaned. Now we have to place the crate somewhere? In the far corner where the mirror resides? Good suggestion. Now we have to remove the mirror and replace it with one that doesn’t take up too much space, perhaps a wall hanger. But the only wall it can hang on it plaster over concrete, and my time installing the curtain rods suggests that, that particular job is a weekend affair.

And as I’ve written out this stream-of-thought reasoning, a brief pathology examination, I’ve slowly come to realize that it is easier for me to just make excuses.

Your life is going to pass by whether you blink or not, so might as well go.

To quote the great warrior-poet, and recent rap battle winner, Kendrick Lamarr; “it was always me vs the world, until I found it’s me vs me.”