How to not make a decision

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I've been feeling a bit like Alice lately. I've been in a strange sort of paralysis for a few weeks now - I had a few big things I needed to make decisions on, one to do with my younger son, another to do with my career.

Funnily enough, in the workplace I'm very decisive. But in my personal life I'm quite a prevaricator. And I've been prevaricating about this stuff for a while.

This weekend, I turned a corner. I was at a birthday party and got talking to another parent. She said something - nothing I hadn't thought of before - but it made the issue about my younger son seem suddenly obvious. And Mr T was pleased because it meant I agreed with him.

Having made that one decision, the others seemed to come much more easily. It was as though a blockage had been removed.

I'm not sure the weeks of paralysis were such a bad thing. Maybe they were part of the process? Maybe all the material I needed to consider was fermenting away in my brain the whole time, getting mashed down ready for analysis. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to make big personal decisions 'til this weekend.

During those weeks, I used my reading matter quite consciously as a distraction. When I'd start feeling overwhelmed, I'd pick up my Kindle and within moments, I'd be ring-fenced from my worries. Escapism? Yes.

Not escapism from daily life, but escapism from a state of mind that was stressful. A distraction from a repetitive train of thought I was finding it difficult to reach any kind of conclusion on.

Is romance better escapism/distraction than other forms of literature? For me, yes, I think so. Something about the emotional content being more consuming perhaps. Something perhaps around precisely what it is being engaged, not merely the attention of the brain but emotional energy? I don't know precisely. It's difficult to articulate what it is about reading a romance novel that enables me to almost 'close off' an unproductive/ difficult train of thought and replace it with a new channel for my mental energy.

I don't use romance novels as distraction very often - I usually just read them cos I like them. But this last week or two, I absolutely have.

What about you? Do you ever need to escape, and if so, how do you achieve it? Between the pages of a book? If so, what is your ultimate escape read? I found Anne Stuart's Breathless highly effective...