It’s been a while.
Thanks to the magic of ADHD, I’ve been having trouble doing everything, because I’m in the midst of a very busy time at work. My processes that protect me from going off the rails have fallen by the wayside. It’s scary. I am worried constantly that I’ve forgotten something important.
A few weeks ago, I discovered that I missed out on a career opportunity during the intensity of the last several months. It’s just not like me to fumble the ball like this and it was hard to swallow. However, there’s not much I can do about it now, so I had to try to put in place a better process to avoid doing so again in the future.
This getting up after a fall is one of my greatest advances over the last decade. Back in the day, something like this would have caused me great stress and ongoing anxiety. Now that I realize ADHD holds me back rather than general unworthiness, I’m able to move to the doing better in the future stage much more quickly.
However, I don’t foresee being able to post on this blog very much for at least the next three months. I’m not giving it up, that’s for sure. Being able to write has helped me work through many things that I didn’t realize I needed to work through. But the reality is that work has prevented me from doing so much lately that I need to be realistic about my capacity going forward.
It’s been a funny summer. For most of my life, summer has been a time to take a mental break, even during my decades of working through the summer. I’ve had a few summers where I was working very intense political jobs, and even then, we called the summer the “slow burn” because usually the total number of hours per day was just enough to be exhausting, but not enough to burn you out unless kept up for well beyond the summer. Still, I’ve always been able to enjoy some time away from work with my friends or family.
This summer is different. I feel like I’ve been working 60 hour weeks for two years. Along with a few of my coworkers, I have been having trouble remembering what day it is. During those days when I am home and responsible for waking up early with the kids, this has been a challenge because I often think it is a day I don’t need to be up when they are. I don’t want to go into details, but one day I was late getting one of my sons up and had one of those quintessential mommy moments where I smelled the smeared poop as soon as I opened the door. Not fun. My sister warned me there would be days like that but it still came as a disgusting surprise.
May your summer be filled with love and joy, not feces ground into your carpet.
You Aughta Know 