when it consumes you

I over think things.

There.

It has been said.

Whew. I feel better. This isn’t a new thing. The very first things that ever stressed me out were because I would NOT STOP THINKING about them. I don’t just think “hey, maybe I’ll have a slice of pizza at the mall for lunch”, I go down the road of “hey, maybe I’ll have a slice of pizza at the mall for lunch… should I do that before I shop or after I shop… I mean, before I shop will allow me to try on clothes based on how I feel after eating said slice of pizza but before I shop will allow me to feel better about how I feel in those jeans I’m going to try on but wait, there is also a Chik-fil-A at the mall… wait… no… it’s Sunday, so pizza… before shopping… after shopping… ” and it does not stop.

This is hands down the most obnoxious thing I do (and let’s admit we all have a sizable list of obnoxious traits that come with this package deal called life).

This happened a couple of nights ago and this blog was the culprit. When I’m in the mood, writing a post comes easily. The hard part is the title. Like the titles of my boards in Pinterest (which is another post all together), I want titles to stand out. Like this one, for instance, could be “Erin’s Obnoxious Over Thinking” but is there a more lame blog post title?

No.

And so I sit and think about the post title sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, and sometimes a post is written and never published because I just can’t come up with a title that suits me. They aren’t always obvious. My draft post page is a graveyard of great ideas without a great announcement. For those posts, it seems I need a town crier who can help me craft the perfect introduction to the world.

While thinking about today’s post, when I should have been drifting off to sleep, it occurred to me that I could eliminate the post titles all together and just use the date. It would eliminate so much and make finding a post nice and simple. I don’t tag my posts and my titles don’t consistently lead to amazing search functions so perhaps a date is a nice way to do that. I went to sleep content in my new direction.

Yes, I realize this new direction would surely lead to a complete redesign but I was able to put that thought to bed for another session of over thinking.

So I sat down to dump my daily thoughts on this post… typed 4.7.21 and let that stare at me for a few moments. And then I deleted it, started this post, and added it back in. Again, I let it stare at me for a few moments. Why was this road block popping up when I was so confident this was the new direction for me?

I was stuck. Thinking about that dang date. And so I deleted it a second time and the title just landed in my lap. It was so obvious.

This time.

In other news, the sweet boy and I are heading out to the coast for a weekend get away. This used to be a pretty regular trip for us but it has been well over a year since just the two of us ventured out for a couple of days of chowder tasting, rock hunting, storm watching, and seagull dodging. A huge shout out to my siblings who gifted me an Airbnb gift card for my 40th birthday last November… you couldn’t get someone like me a better gift. So off we’ll go and I cannot wait.