My Comfy Place

I have a love/hate relationship with my office. I love the look of it. Ceiling-high bookshelves—stuffed to overflowing—line two walls. An L-shaped desk juts into the center of the room, providing a separate desktop space for my kids’ computer. I have a rolling, high-back chair, even a plastic mat on the floor to keep it from catching on the carpet. There is a stereo system as well as a large closet. Even a door into the bathroom.

Light streams in from the oblong window over the desk or shines from the four light fixtures attached to the ceiling fan. My two cross-stitched samplers, relics from my pre-child past, flank the window and a denim memo board covers a square of wall usually hidden behind the open door. Printer paper and office supplies are within easy reach.

It’s perfect, really.

So why can’t I work in there? What is my aversion to sitting at a desk? I would be more productive, I think, than sitting in my overstuffed chair in the corner of the living room. From there I see dishes that need cleaning, dinner that needs fixing. I see a dark TV set that could transport me into the storyworld of a movie (literature-based, of course—at least that’s what I try to tell myself.) I listen for the mailman. The sunny deck out back beckons me. In short, I don’t get as much writing done as I’d like to—as I think I ought to.

But somehow I end up with great word counts when I’m forced into the hidey-hole of my office for the day. And I love it while I’m in there. I guess it’s just a matter of foregoing my comfy place in order to fully do what God has called me to do. And isn’t that true, no matter what our calling is?