As a kid, I was a dreamer. I just wanted to stay in my big attic bedroom and read fairy tales, imagine myself at the center of exciting and romantic adventures, and lip sync torch songs into a hairbrush in front of my full length mirror. Cleaning my room and doing chores were not part of the picture.
Of course, my grandmother, who took care of me while my mother ran her diner, was more than a little frustrated. She came from hard-working, humorless, Scandinavian farming stock, and was thoroughly disgusted with me.
“Lazy!”
I can still hear her voice when I type that word. And at some point I decided, “Damn straight I’m lazy, and I love my laziness!”
After that, I nurtured my laziness, protecting it from all comers: my stepfather, the hard-working son of a hard-working German immigrant, who assigned me to work the evening shift at my mother’s diner under the supervision of a hard-working taskmistress named Gladys; and a collection of, yes, hard-working roommates, partners and bosses, who all lost patience with me at one time or another.
I never could understand their Midwestern fondness for hard work, but after a while the critics got to me. I knew they must be right.
I started to hate myself for my laziness, and I learned to hide it.
I worked hard where people could see, but in private I brought my laziness out and caressed it, like Gollum admiring his Ring: “My Precioussss!”
Okay, that sounds creepy. But I swear it’s exactly the way I feel about it: I love my laziness. Call it Resistance, call it Fear — it all boils down to one thing: I don’t want to give up my laziness. Now that I have a small pension to live on and don’t have to worry about the rent, I want to know that I can watch a movie when I feel like it, or take a nap when I’m sleepy, or waste a day [or three] on Twitter and the web.
But my precious laziness is getting in the way.
There are things I want that I can’t have if I keep hanging onto it like this. I want to move to the mountains, for one thing. That takes money. I want to have a dog. I want to travel and visit friends. Not free.
So I was thinking, maybe I can make a deal with my laziness. I could say, “I’ll give you this if you’ll give me that. You can have three days a week — hell, four — if you’ll just let me get my work done during the other three. What do you say? Do we have a deal, Precious?”
Yeah, maybe that will work. And just to help the deal along, I’ve signed up for a course that I hope will gently nudge my Precious in the right direction: The Wisdom of Your Resistance. There’s nothing to be afraid of, dear one, really.
Here, take my hand…
Image credits: “Smeagol” by Jawd Bush & “Take my hand” by cproppe
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Love it, LaVonne. It's so important to honour these parts of ourself. Maybe your laziness is part of your creative process and if you shut it down, all those crazy writing ideas start drying up. I know what I call 'drifting time' or daydreaming is a huge part of my process and nothing would happen for me without it.
Kirsty, you just reminded me that when I was a teenager, there was an article in the paper about chaos and creativity, and that messy rooms can be a sign of creativity in kids. Hah, I cut it out and waved it under Grandma's nose triumphantly. She wasn't at all happy, but she was a former teacher and she had to give me credit for citing my source, lol.
That sounds like a helluva good compromise. And b/c I worked late tonight with back-to-back clients, I'm still in the psychotherapy zone.
Please forgive my (licensed) dime store psychology, but as I read about your hard working parents, I couldn't help thinking that maybe you were acting out a lazy side they only wished they could adopt…
I never thought of that, hmm. It's interesting that my mother, who was the
hardest working woman I ever met, never criticized me and always encouraged
my creativity. I once asked her what she wanted me to be when I grew up, and
she said [all misty-eyed], “Oh, I would love it if you became a writer.”
My response? “Are you kidding?! Do you know how much WORK that is?”
Awww–God bless mom. Okay, I will make this my last unsolicited interpretation, but I believe mom admired in you what she felt she couldn't express. You were likely the holder of the family's creativity. Not to mention, a dutiful daughter for honoring her wish. Now I'm getting misty-eyed…
Yeah, she was the best. And she was creative, as a business woman and before
that, as a seamstress and a hatmaker.
And thanks for the free therapy!
Hi LaVonne- Appreciated the 'depression' post. We've all been there, and it takes courage to put it out. Sounds like you are very aware of your cycles and doing (so under-rated) things to bring structure and order by reaching out. Btw, I'm on the new CrackBerry (all thumbs), and couldn't figure out how to access the proper screen for posting…Sorry, and thanks for this one (also props to Susan and your son!). Take care, Linda
Type your reply…
Ooh, I hate trying to type/text on phones. So frustrating! Thanks for the
kind words – much appreciated. 🙂
Wow – this totally resonates with me! I really am pretty lazy. But I hid it for a long time and worked my ass off as a lawyer even though I hated it because I had to show people (myself?) that I wasn't really lazy. Weird. These days, I really SHOULD be spending more time on my part-time (paid by the hour) job which I hate but I don't because I've let the laziness take over. And because I'm in school to become a massage therapist which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. (Can't wait until I can give people massages every day AND make a living.) In the meantime, my “laziness” means I spend lots of lazy summer time days with my kids (which I've never been able to do in their whole lives), I have lunch with friends, I go to rock concerts, I read A LOT. Basically – I'm finally having FUN. Damn I'm lucky. So anyway, maybe – just maybe – I could make a deal with my laziness too because my mortgage lender is going to want to keep getting paid. I like your idea. Lazy gets a few days and work gets one or two days. I'm gonna try that . . .