Just chilling in the rain at the dealership while my car is reborn. Reborn, I say! Oil changes may be include in the price of the now paid-off car, but everything else sure isn't! For that reason, the following will be longer than 15 minutes worth of writing.
So I'm trying to chip away at non-sensitive-information-involved admin (admin being what I've taken to calling paperwork vital to life that doesn't pertain to work or school). Simultaneously I am doing the hospice volunteer training even though I'm pretty sure I won't have time to actually do it. If I'm going to be doing that, I might as well (or maybe would better serve by) pouring time into spending time with my MIL. It's a lot of hours. And I started it a long time ago, never finished it, and now I'm here again.
Today was also the first day of school at a new school for L, and I've never seen her look so serious and pale. She was really missing her friends. And I don't think I really helped. And she's in that space where she's pulling away and still needing me and that's a tricky space to exist in. I remember being 7 or 8 and sitting on the couch with my mom and her scratching my back and feeling so little and connected to her and simultaneously like I shouldn't be feeling that way. Like I should be trying to be cool and wearing hair ties on my wrists because I thought it looked cool and snapping bubble gum and roller skating around my best friend's little brother's birthday party because he wanted, like, a 50s theme (I don't know either, girl).
While cleaning out the shed the other day I found a bird hooked between the can and handle of a paint-can. And that bird was mummified. It was a bad scene. The poor thing. It looked like it had been there all winter. And that could, I suppose, go a long way toward explaining the obsession neighborhood cats have with our shed.
I've been fighting with myself, lately, about a few things. Here's a list!
My type of deal with limerence. Why can't I just like people and love people and just be okay with shit why does it always have to be so dramatic jesus. And then I meditate and things seem markedly better.
Just because I grew up on a farm doing hard(ish) labor doesn't mean that my kid(s) have to do that too. There's this fearful clutching in my chest in which I'm a part of me is all like, "Oh no! The youths! They will not know how to do The Things! Woe betide them!" and another part that's like, "So what? Let it burn." and still a third part which is more like, "Well. I mean, probably every older generation ever felt like this. And it's been...okay-ish? So far? Maybe chill? Just because you were mowing giant lawns with a push-mower at age 6 doesn't mean she does." And arguably, I'm not sure that particular experience was all that great. In part because of my chronological age and in part because I couldn't start the damn mower - just push it. And to this day I can't start a damn weed-whacker. There's a whole school of thought in which a (typically developing) child shouldn't do motor planning tasks that they aren't able to problem-solve through and achieve independently. Exceptions of course, etc. but there's probably some truth to it. Case in point this episode of Bluey:
Why can't I just do things? It probably looks like I do just do things. Especially with the new-ish meds. But, in fact, I do not. I was thinking about it as trying to get my ass out the door in the morning in the last two weeks considered that even with 150 mg bupropion and 400+ mg of caffeine per day, 45+ minutes of exercise up to 5 days a week for the endorphins, and trying to curate my diet to give me good hormones while staying on the non-eating disorder side and getting (ideally) 10 hours of sleep a night...I'm still basically just using all this to run through my lil' cycles of being productive/unproductive more quickly than I otherwise would and, hopefully, conversely getting more of the shit done than I otherwise would. I am tired of my brain. And society. And your face. Just kidding! Not that last one.
Something I learned about my current self during fieldwork was that I am pretty damn good at young ADHD-er AMAB, slightly less so with young autistic AMABs. Partly, I think, because I have had nearly 40 years of figuring out how to get shit done by tricking myself into doing shit, and an innate understanding (or misunderstanding I suppose, if I'm wrong) that, for ADHD, shit works until it doesn't. Lists and visual schedules are great until they turn into wallpaper and mileage for that is very very personal. Lists are also a great idea until the PDA kicks in. And ya'll (we) need extra time to come around to the idea of doing whatever the thing is that wasn't your (my) idea. But we'll get there! And for fuck's sake don't phrase it like I just did or that will trigger the RSD. One thing a parent said especially resonated: there's reason to think that if a child's ADHD is not addressed in childhood the consequences could be extensive and include addiction and mental health disorder. So. Maybe that's a nice little dovetail not only into Life In General, but my capstone. Okay, ACEs, but also: are you ADHD or autistic? And what can we do about that now?
I guess that's most of what I wanted to talk about today. Hope things are good in the hood!
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