The weather has not yet returned to the peak heat of summer, but the days are warming again as the cold front from the last two days makes its way out from the front range. The mornings are still cool though, and I suspect we’ve seen the last of sweltering temperatures before lunchtime. I can feel autumn creeping in and the sadness that comes with the long winter beginning to build already.
For now, it’s a lazy Saturday here at home this morning. I needed time to do nothing. More than that, I needed time to think about nothing, too. This past week was a hard one with long working hours and fast-changing expectations, but the bad was balanced by the good with more quality time with people I care about and a stronger, more solid physical feeling than I’ve had in a long time.
I spent many of the moments between tasks reflecting on some deep revelations I’ve stumbled across about myself and studying old, and often painful memories, under this new light of understanding.
I think there is a strong possibility I have—and have always had—ADHD. My mother has it, and quite possibly both of my brothers, but it somehow never occurred to me that I also had the disorder until recently when my scattered mind and inattention were mentioned by 3 to 4 people in a matter of weeks. It had not occurred to me that other people’s minds were so splintered or active as mine.
I’m extremely aware now of how I get bored with tasks, fail to finish tasks, fail to sit in one place, or do one thing for more than 15 minutes at the most. I’m now aware of how my mind wanders while I write, while I listen, and even while I speak. I’m aware of the impulses and compulsions to get up, to switch gears, to do it all at once. I’m also aware of how much I forget and how little I can ever accomplish despite the whirlwinds of ideas and action.
Even now as I sit and type this, I want to get up. I want to finish the dishes in the sink, make some cold brew coffee, watch a show, and wash my hair. I used to think it was plan procrastination but I recognize now that this urge and in fact all my life up to it is simply a result of an inner restlessness I have never before been able to fully understand, let alone control.
Lisa Marie Blair 