What Is Stopping You?

 

I ask myself this often. What stops me from doing what I should, all those errands that pile up on every horizontal space in our house? CFS/M.E. can be scolded for some of it. Even much of it.

Sometimes it seems that  the choice is between what I ought to do to maintain our house, and my relationship, and what I want to do to keep on being me. My failures at external shoulds used to be only my own. Now those failures effect someone else. Now Alan must maneuver past my piles. 

Alone, the question What is stopping me? weighed most heavily on writing. What is stopping me from writing? What stops me from collecting my poems into a manuscript? What stops me from submitting my poems for publication? 

These questions are still heavy. They sit on top of papers and pens and various misplaced items all over our house. Things needed, pulled from where they belong, and then left, heavily, wherever they land. 

What is stopping me?