Years of "to-dos," piled up

My "to-do" list threatens to become overwhelming. For the past several years, work duties have overflowed into my evenings and weekends, and things I didn't have time to deal with began to pile up. They piled up both literally -- in my closets and cabinets, and figuratively -- in my mind, which became cluttered with visions of creative and pleasurable things I wanted to do. Even when the idea of retirement had not even entered my thoughts, I was still promising myself I'd deal with these things in the hazy someday when I wasn't working all day every day.

Now that day is here, and the array of things waiting to be done is daunting. I don't even know where to start. I feel like a "Cathy" comic strip I once read: I need to do THIS but I can't do it until I have done THAT, and I can't do THAT because it depends on this other thing, and I can't do the other thing yet because ….

Perhaps the key is to decide which tasks need tackling soonest, and then to break the big task down into little pieces. Right near the top of any "soonest" list will be my shoe collection. I had half my shoes here at home, neatly sorted on a shoe shelf, and the other half were at the apartment. Now they are all here, spilling out onto my closet floor threatening to trip me every time I venture there. I can't put them away until I have found more space. I can't find more space until I identify something that can be eliminated. That's the toughest part, but that's where I need to start. And no excuses now.

So maybe the answer is to go fix myself one of those nice lattes and sip it while I review my closet for unneeded possessions. Stay tuned for progress with the shoes……