Last week, I was standing in a ridiculously long line at the post office that was moving at approximately the pace of evolution when I remembered I'd not yet gotten my mother a Valentine's Day card.
Getting her a card for Valentine's Day - and sometimes a silly little gift, too - is something I have done for years. Conveniently, on a rack next to where I stood waiting was a selection of cards. This was when the booming voice in my head, the one always ready with ill advice, piped up.
"There's plenty of time until Valentine's Day," it said. "You can get a card later. For now just relax and enjoy your interminable wait."
Relief at not having to make an immediate card decision flooded my body. I could go on just standing there, marveling at how starkly uninviting post offices are, with their kitschy mail-themed merchandise (a stamp dispenser shaped like a mailbox, a keychain with a dog on it) that no one would ever buy unless they were trapped in a line behind a dozen elderly people shuffling toward the single functioning clerk station, where they will then stand for a very long time, apparently starved for conversation about stamps. Which is why I own both the tiny stamp dispenser and the keychain.
But then I realized that Valentine's Day was actually only three days away and, unless "getting the card later" meant leaving the post office I was in and driving straight to another one to purchase and mail the card, there, in fact, was not time. So, reluctantly, I began scanning the cards but not without hoping the line would suddenly pick up and I'd be forced to abandon my quest. It didn't. I found the card I would send my mother. It had a picture of a hole puncher on it with a heart outlined with the punched-out holes. It said, "I love you a hole punch." This cracked me up.
Then Ill Advice piped up again. "Buy it now, but write a note and mail it later," it said.
Relief flooded my body again. I would not have to think of what to say right now. I could wait and do it later.
Then I reminded myself that not only was Valentine's Day three days away, but I was actually at that moment IN a post office where, if I scribbled a note (and not even a quick one, because let's face it, time was not of the essence), I could purchase the stamp and mail the thing all at the same time and be done with it.
And still I was reluctant. The problem seemed to be that I had come to do one thing and one thing only, which was to mail an extraordinarily long overdue thank-you note and book to someone. In fact, the thank-you note was 25 years overdue, which is why I was including the book as an apology for being 21/2 decades late to say thank you but also to remind the person who I was (the book was my memoir).
At last I opened my mother's Valentine card, fished a pen out of my purse and thought for a moment. To "I love you a hole punch," I added, "Because love is a staple." This, too, cracked me up. Then I parked the card in the envelope, sealed it and resumed waiting idly in line, happy that I had no pressing business left to attend to.
Twenty minutes later, in the car, I was telling my husband the whole story when he made the observation that I am a procrastinator. Which might be true, although I don't want to commit to the label right off, preferring instead to think about it for a bit.
What I do know is how much more rewarding it is to complete a task you've put off for weeks or months or decades than it is to cross it off a list moments after you've put it on one. My husband is not in agreement about this at all. Completely unbidden, he will brandish a working list with 27 items on it, ranging from the urgent to the thoroughly optional and declare that he must complete 17 of them before day's end. And then he will do it.
His way makes me crazy. My way makes him crazy. Still, I love him a hole punch. Though I did wait too late to get him a Valentine's Day card.
Dana Shavin is the author of the memoir "The Body Tourist." Contact her at Dana@danashavin.com.