The Subconscious Deadline

In order to get my child out of the house on time, I move up the deadline of dressing, eating. and brushing teeth. The kitchen clock runs 5 minutes ahead of itself.

Accepting that I will want to snuggle in for at least 10 minutes with the warm body of my husband in bed every weekday morning – I set the white noise on the alarm that far ahead of the actual alarm to get me to the lala state of feeling but not knowing.  The deadline of rising is moved up to fool myself.

During the month of August, I won a large battle to relocate my daughter to Asheville, NC, and marry my high school sweetheart.  I could do nothing to move that clock ahead; it took 1 1/2 years to just be heard in front of the judge.   I had 1 week to move us and our furniture up here, merge it with someone who already had 3 children, and get my daughter settled into a brand new school.  (Did I say get it on the moving truck and unpack? Did I tell you I also got married?)  After that deadline, which would not budge, I had the due date of October 1 to contend with:  the birth of my second cookbook.  Could I move it back?  I did not dare.

So in 6 weeks, basically, I developed and tested and edited and blurbed 140 recipes.  That is a lot of energy expended along with settling down, getting married, and transitioning a child from private to wonderful public schools.  I pretty much said, “Honey I love you but we’ll catch up after October 1.”

In some ways, having that work deadline helped me not freak out about all of the other personal issues that were swirling around.  I was able to claim absolute tiredness under the guise of all that physical recipe testing.

So, after all of that trauma that I put my family through with my book deadline of Oct. 1., I read the contract again today, because I wanted to see the format I was to send in the manuscript.

And the deadline is October 31, not October 1.  All of the theatrics of “my having to work” and “y’all have to go out for dinner “was for naught.

Or was it?  Did I unintentionally move that deadline in my head to October 1, knowing it would keep me in work up to my eyeballs and I would not have time to worry about what sofa went where?  It was almost a ploy for me to help me keep my sanity.

And I will tell you that nothing feels better than to finish a major project 1 month before the deadline.  I like pushing deadlines ahead; that way you are ready for everything that comes along.


- A. Diva