Tried and True

I was coming on to discuss how I felt like an utterly useless waste of human existence when the last post I created caught my eye. Feel like an utter failure? Check. Useless? Check. Should be doing better at [insert metric here]? Check. Facial hair growing in at a preternatural rate? Oh hell yeah. Approximately thirty day intervals? Yup. Between you, me, and the fence post, I'd rather be still dealing with blood.

Also: The new swamper still isn't in and I'm dealing with one whopper of an electric bill. The water bill will probably be a dilly as well. Last month was a disastrous combination of diagnosed ADHD and undiagnosed ear infection, the latter of which had gotten so bad that my balance was hugely affected, the sinus headaches were debilitating, and any semblance of concentration whatsoever was just MIA. A couple of bills went unpaid because my brain could see the bill, know that it needed paying, and just couldn't get the levers pulled to get the action. I didn't seek medical help until then because I didn't think it was that bad, really, and who in their right mind wants to go to a doctor's office these days? Fortunately for me, my doctor is doing phone appointments and was willing to prescribe medication that way, and the pharmacy was willing to mail the prescription. I didn't get the medicine for several miserable days but once I did and the effects kicked in - well, I really, really didn't understand how sick I was until I got better. 

I had an initial burst of energy and then - today. It took me most of the morning and part of the afternoon to process the data and then my little dim lightbulb went bing. I've got an emotion in search of a cause! And now I know what that cause is, and it isn't me being a total mistake the universe hasn't corrected yet. It's just hormonal imbalance and another data point against intelligent design.

So I'll go with the tried and true methodology for combating the issue. I will brush my hair and put on a bra so I can feel like a functional adult. I will declutter, clean, and organize. I will write. I will make things. I may not get the swamper in today but I can certainly move the project along another inch or two. It doesn't hurt that yesterday I sat down and got my books back in balance. I may have only a couple of cents to rub together but everybody is getting fed and none of the utilities are getting shut off. I am not where I want to be but I can get there from here.

the shame game

My brain is doing loop-de-loops today. I’ve got this sick feeling that I can’t shake and it took me most of the morning to figure out what’s going on: The Shame Game. Everything I’ve ever done wrong, every bad thing that has ever happened to me, all the bad things that are still happening to me, my failures, my inabilities, my belief that in should-have-beens, all of it yammering in my skull full time like a jack-hammer. My house is a wreck, my life is a wreck, it’s all my fault, and I can’t seem to muster the energy to fix any of it.

I should be in a better place in my life than I currently am. Unemployed at the beginning of a massive Depression, dependent on an ex-husband who thrives on being undependable, with three grown or nearly-grown children who don’t have gainful employment, my house falling down around my ears: I could go on for days.

Part of this is just how my brain is wired, and part of what is going on is decades of conditioning that my failures are completely within my control. I worked very hard for years on a marriage that was never going to succeed because the man I was married to has a vastly different idea of what marriage should be than I do. If hard work was going to save that marriage, then we’d still be hitched. Hard work has a chance only if both parties are on the same page pulling for the same goal. I’m actually happier as a financially precarious divorcee than I was married to someone who did not have, and never did have, my best interests at heart. Pretty tough to be happy knowing that my husband didn’t think of me as an actual person but merely as a boundless resource, incapable of being overdrawn, and requiring no actual maintenance.

Undiagnosed executive function impairments also work wonders on a life. It isn’t a relief to be diagnosed when the script for lazy has been all but imprinted on my DNA for most of my existence. I still feel like I should be able to power through whatever obstacle is in my way, regardless of what that obstacle is or what my diminished store of resources holds. It takes a while to stop and take stock: This is what I have vs. this is what is needed. What I need is one hundred thousand dollars and a stable, secure job. What I have is a little bitty monthly support check. There’s a gulf there that can’t just be powered through. What I need is the ability to form an internally-imposed routine that can’t be immediately thrown off its rails by every metaphorical shift in the wind, and that just can’t happen the way my brain is wired. What I need is a couple of 20-yard dumpsters to get rid of the clutter in the house that is also cluttering up my brain but – well, see the above statement about the need for a job and cash. What I need is the ability for bi-linear time travel and what I’ve got is unidirectional.

There is no winning at The Shame Game. I can’t go back and change the conditions that got me here, I have no way of changing the way my brain is wired, I can only deal with the here-and-now, and I can only work on mitigation systems for the issues I’m always going to have.

So, I push away from what is causing shame and paralysis and I do something that makes those awful feelings recede to the point where I’m both functional again and capable of taking action on what’s actionable. Hence today’s pushing away from social media doom-scrolling and then writing a blog post that helps get my brain back on track.

Now I’m going to find my steel-toes and my safety glasses and finally get that evaporative cooler framework done that I’ve been promising myself.

It isn't a set-back, it's a cha-cha

I had plans for the day. Not very big plans; I meant to get some banking done and do a little decluttering and reorganizing of some boxes that have desperately needed it for a while. My plans all got derailed early by MB’s clear need to have somebody to talk to today. So my cleaning and decluttering and organizing did not happen, but I did order the painting supplies I’m going to need for repainting the house, and I did gather the Banshees together to have a discussion about replacing the dead chest freezer with an equivalently-sized upright freezer, and I did resolve an order for gardening supplies that had gone somewhat sideways about a month ago.

So, the day wasn’t very productive but it was at least a little productive.

The Banshees seem to like the way I’ve rearranged my bedroom; it is apparently very much more ‘me’ in some intangible way. I don’t know that I will leave it the way that it’s standing but right now I’m having fun. Putting the bed in the middle of the room was a way to force a re-appraisement of a score of little habits and points of view that I inadvertently developed over the last thirty some-odd years. How do I make my room more useful to me? What should I keep and what absolutely has to go and what should I tackle first in my attempt to run through my various crafting stashes as quickly as possible? Is this space a more peaceful space? Every little bit I clear makes it easier to get on with the next right thing. I will never be minimalist but I am grimly determined to create a space where all that I have fills me with some form of joy, of happiness, or just plain old contentment. I like contentment. It’s wanting what you have, and so much of what I have I really do want. After trying so hard for so many years to cobble together a relationship that just wasn’t going to happen, I have the peace of knowing I did my best and letting go of everything else. My children seem to like me and want the best for me, and for our little family. I have a roof over my head and the wherewithal to keep the lights on for at least a little while longer. I have space for my thoughts. I’m starting to craft my routine. I have, if I can just let myself get there, a little bit of room to start building things: Furniture, stories, the rest of my life.

I’m weirdly proud of the fact that I didn’t lie to my planner. I had tasks that were supposed to be done by the end of the day and they aren’t done, and I haven’t said they are done and I haven’t extended my deadline. I’m still figuring out how to fold it into how I do things, rather than try to bend myself into frazzles to fit into its system. Right now all I’ve done with it is pretty much listed every single project I want to do as I remember them, without spending hours and hours attempting to nail down every single detail. I don’t have those details. I don’t have that time. What I have is a list of what I want to do and I’m treating it like my attempts at filing: What I need most right now is a place to pile everything. The sub-filing details come later when I finally figure out what they are.

It also enables me to figure out what I want or need to work on right now. Some of what I want to do has to have some structure built before I can get to it, so those are back-burnered until some more life-construction has taken place. I can put details in as they occur to me. Some stuff has to be done now, sort of simultaneously. Okay, but no more than three very different projects because the sub-headings alone are enough to give headaches. It just won’t work if I try to make it something it isn’t, or try to make me something I’m not. A few details, a little at a time, because I’m trying to build a good foundation for the humble bungalow that’s going to be the rest of my life. 

x

The Uses of Not

It’s cleaning day in the Autodidactive Society’s cave, and time for rehashing the old woes about having way too much Stuff and way too little space. I have the unfortunate habit of conflating acquiring with actually doing, and have had the somewhat belated revelation that I acquire as a way of putting off doing. If I don’t do, I don’t fail, but look at all of the great intentions I’ve purchased! Yes, this is a strong cup of tea with an ibuprofen chaser just waiting to happen.

I’ve known for years – probably decades at this point – that having too much Stuff is also a grand way to stifle creativity and one of the ways to actually get my projects done before my untimely demise is to pare down interests to a sparse handful at a time, and pare down supplies so I have the space to accomplish what I want to get done. Of course, I’ve also been dealing with the perfect storm of a dysfunctional marriage, undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, being a de facto single parent of three closely spaced offspring, and having zero time in which to deal with my smothered creativity. In other words, no time, no resources, and no head-space to get done what needed to be done, or to recognize that maybe I’m packing way too much into a twenty-four hour day.

Life intervened. Doesn’t it always? My marriage of nearly thirty years finally finished crumbling, my children simply aren’t children anymore, and the ADHD is being dealt with after finally being identified. Oh yes, and Covid-19 reared its ugly noggin. So: Static disruptor has moved on, may he have a long and happy life; the children can run the house without my constant input or worry about whether anything will blow up or fall down; I can finally start putting together the routine that I’ve desperately needed all of my existence, and I’ve been put in comprehensive lockdown so I can’t run away and ignore anything.

I have decades of intentions to deal with at this point. I have nearly a quarter century of accumulation in this house alone. I have so much Stuff that it would be really very easy to just throw my hands up in the air and retreat into endless looping of the Internet. In fact, I have a lot of practice in throwing my hands in the air and going down informational rabbit-holes. However – yeah, there’s always one of those, isn’t there? – I need to be creative again. NEED. I haven’t been able to be myself in so long that I’m about ready to claw my way out of my own skin. The less destructive option is the boring, in both senses, job of sorting out my Stuff and categorizing, culling, cleaning the vast screaming wilderness of it all.

h

The Uses of Not

 

Thirty spokes

Meet in the hub.

Where the wheel isn’t

is where it’s useful.

 

Hollowed out,

clay makes a pot.

Where the pot’s not

is where it’s useful.

 

Cut doors and windows

to make a room.

Where the room isn’t,

there’s room for you.

 

So the profit in what is

is in the use of what isn’t.

 

Tao Te Ching

English version by Ursula K. Le Guin

 

I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy.

I'll retitle when I get a better one

May 19, 2020

We’ve developed a technique in this family out of sheer necessity and it’s generally thus:

Is X situation causing Y feeling, or is Y a feeling that is searching for a cause and X got in its way?

 

Because, yes, there are times when something happens and it causes all sorts of emotions and that’s all straight-forward and reasonable and explanations are a breeze. When it’s the other way around, however, it can be a complete and utter emotional bloodbath with nobody quite knowing what caused it or why it’s happening.

 

Am I upset because [insert name here] did something, or am I having a hormone storm and it’s bleeding out of my emotional system? Am I really worthless or am I just having some free-floating anxiety that’s caused by something utterly out of my control? I’m furious beyond words but is it really because something happened that doesn’t normally bother me, or could it be that I’m overloaded and a circuit just blew?

 

Today I’ve been feeling anxious, worthless, and helpless. I know I’m not worthless, so that’s got to be getting fed by the anxiety. I’m not exactly not helpless but I’m also not that out of control of my own destiny, so, anxiety feeding that as well. Root of anxiety? Ah, yep, concern over whether I’m going to be able to pay the bills this month. As it so happens, I am going to be able to keep the lights on and food in the fridge so I packaged up my little bundle of anxiety and put it back in storage. It never goes away, but I can manage to make most of its outings tolerable.

 

n

Projects, I have projects. I have way too many projects. I suffer from project paralysis and overwhelm. C-19 - the event, not the disease - caused a short-circuit in my brain wiring and a kind of cascade effect where every part of my brain’s to-do list is failing and causing other parts to fail and it’s crazy-making because I really want to do everything that I haven’t been doing. Part of my short-circuit that I can identify and patch (it will never, ever be a permanent repair) is getting back to my bullet journal. I tell people that bullet journaling is awful, horrible, and awkward, and is just about the only thing that has ever worked for me at all so I keep changing and refining my techniques. Yesterday I added a project-planning app to my stew. It was inexpensive and so worth figuring out if I can fold it into my ongoing attempts at organization. One of the issues that I struggle with, project-wise and with life in general, is that I am incredibly time-blind and so I don’t really understand, comprehend, or otherwise recognize just how much time any given project is going to take. Well, time-blind just means I have to work harder and put a few safe-guards in to help me recognize and manage my limitations. Hopefully this project planning app will help because there is just so much I want to do before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I won’t get done with it all – I don’t really want to get done with it all – but I’d like to get closer than my current trajectory is taking me.

Self-Motivational Post

Woke up tired and achy for no apparent reason, and feeling helpless and hopeless for all sorts of reasons (divorces, no matter how amicable, suck; and treasonous regimes are terrifying, horrific, AND exhausting).

The tired and achy bit isn't going away but the HH twins can be abolished by their CC relatives (Clean & Create). Small things are what we create tremendous things out of (also known as: Infrastructure is the key to a lasting difference).

Today's To-do List

1. Make bed
2. Vacuum room
3. Clean bathroom
4. Study DM Guide
5. Create a dozen RPG characters
6. Play with new awl and waxed linen thread
7. Create small booklet
8. Design bookbinding press
9. Make shopping list of items needed for bookbinding press
10. Cook
11. Practice typing

I'm sure activities will migrate onto and off of the list as the day progresses - thanks, ADHD brain! - but having targets helps.