Casting Shadows

I glance at the calendar and gasp. The month is almost over! Not that I have any fondness for February, mind you, but still. There are so many things that I intended to get accomplished this month that are STILL there on my to-do list. 

I was going to have my taxes done.

I was going to take some things to the consignment shop.

I was going to have lunch with so-and-so...

I was going to blog every other day.

I was going to pick a crafty project and finish it.

Obviously, you know where this is going.

"Was going to" being the operative phrase and all, you might have guessed that none of these things are the things that actually got crossed off my list.

I did get to cross a few things off (yay), but I let these slide through the cracks and am now feeling an enormous sense of guilt. 

I know, I know...a quick peek at my own blog archives might remind me not to beat myself up for these things yet undone. But who am I kidding? My inner-self critic is whacking at me like a blindfolded three-year old up to bat at the pinata. 

I wanted my February To-Dos to become Ta-Das.

I wanted so much more from this hatefully abbreviated month.

Maybe that's something to remember, though.

Three whole days get chopped from the calendar. 

Three.

That's three whole days that I should give myself grace for, three days that aren't my fault. I didn't waste them. I didn't piddle them away foolishly.

But even if those three days did actually exist and none of the remaining things for February were accomplished, To Dos needn't be sources of self-flaggelation.

Why?

Maybe we should take inspiration from that famously frustrating mascot of February and make like the groundhog. And yes, I'm very well aware that Groundhog Day officially came and went a long time ago; but hear me out: It seems highly doubtful that he allows the pressures of the calendar to dictate his To Do list. Rather, I imagine he crawls up to the entrance of his hole every year and thinks, "If it happens, it happens." 

No pressure, no expectation. And no sense of guilt if it doesn't "happen."

It just is what it is––no more, no less.

So the month ends in mere days, and my list is still full of To Dos that most likely will not become To Dones.

If it happens, it happens. 

I don't have to let those undone things overshadow everything else.