Lisa Marie Blair

This is the first moment I’ve had in days that I could sit up and think clearly enough to write anything. The short of it is I had to get an emergency root canal after a tooth I chipped many, many months ago decided to start causing problems.

It started around lunchtime last Wednesday with a strange discomfort while chewing. By the end of the workday, the left side of my jaw was throbbing. That evening I was mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen and trying desperately to find a dentist in network that would see me the next day.

I made it into work the next morning, running on little more than caffeine and deep guilt. I didn’t want to leave my coworkers hanging. I didn’t want to leave the kids confused. Luckily I was was able to see a dentist that afternoon. The good news was they could save the tooth. The bad news was the pain would only get worse unless I took care of it as soon as possible and damn, were they right!

By Friday morning, the pain was almost unbearable. I was sleeping on the couch with an ice pack on my face and fighting the impulse to pull the tooth myself. Anything would have been better than how I felt. I knew I couldn’t give the students my best care when I could barely think through the pain, so I did what I felt was best for them and for me, I stayed home.

That afternoon I was in the endodontist chair awaiting a root canal and within an hour I was feeling…different. The pain I went in with was relieved, but I left with new pain and there was more to come. Stomach pain from the medication, headaches, soreness, and getting used to chewing and talking with the temporary filling has been hard, but with plenty of rest and a little TLC from my wife, I am slowly getting better.

The fatigue is hard to fight this morning. I’m trying to work, but heavy limbs and a foggy mind are making it hard. The standard workweek—8 hours a day, 5 days a week—is more than I can handle. Four days to work and three days to myself would make for a much more productive version of myself. If only, if only…

There are days when I feel so sorry for myself. It’s hard to be so limited by sleepiness and pain so often. I’m frustrated I can’t do more. I’m angry less isn’t asked of me. I’m not built for this world and there is little of it made for people like me.

Coffee is almost useless. All I get is a lump of bitterness in my belly threatening to rise up and ruin an already precarious time. At least the morning will fly by. I expect it to be over before I can even get my bearings. The downside is I’ll be worse off by the afternoon when I expect time to slow to a crawl just as what little energy I have wanes further.

The good news is, that despite the tiredness and the growing task list, I feel well on top of things. The work I did yesterday revamping the lists is helping and utilizing reminders is keeping me from getting too far off track. Once I’m settled in this new routine, I’ll add timers and hopefully start making real progress again. ‘

Today’s highest priority is getting my writing project on a list and in order so that the work can start first thing tomorrow. I’ve wasted half a year, and maybe half a lifetime too, but I never stop trying to begin again, and again, and again…

It’s been an emotional start to the morning, but as the hours pass and daylight makes its way into the shadows cast, I find I’m able to process and by mid-morning nothing looked as bad as it had at before sunrise.

It’s hard not to be able to help those you love. It’s harder still to stick to your principles. Giving too much feels as bad as not giving at all. So, how do you know when to stop? How do you know where to draw the line and how do you steel yourself against your own guilt?

The new week began before I was ready and the end, I’m sure, will come long after I need it to. I’m emotionally preparing for the person I will become when exhaustion settles in and I’m worn to the nerves by work. On a positive note, I’m learning to ride the waves of uncertainty and trust my competency to see me through.

I’m spending much of the midday reorganizing my to-do lists and notes. I have paper notes spread across three notebooks and countless post-its. I have digital notes and drafts spread across three different apps. I have lists and tasks in my calendar, in a tasks app, and scribbled on scraps of paper overfilling the pockets of various bags and bottoms. It’s a mess!

I’m moving to one to-do list stored in Google Tasks. All other lists will become notes in Google Keep along with blog post drafts. Drafts are sorted by date started and become blog posts as the drafts above them are written and published. All notebooks are for the deeply personal. They are worries to release and love letters to leave behind. They are for me alone until I leave this life, and then they will be for those who loved me most.

The digital is for the future.

The analog is for the past.

There’s a lot to do this Sunday afternoon and I’m buzzing around the house from room to room trying to get the cleaning done and the to-do list cleared. My restless mind is still trying to drag me to the couch, to the T.V., to social media, and even to things meant for tomorrow or even next week, but I’m watchful and aware of myself and working on executive function and fighting to do the hard things.

But knowing is half the battle, and whether what I think I know turns out to be true or not, I’m at least more aware of what my weaknesses are and better able to see and curb them in the moment rather than realizing hours later what I’ve failed to do and letting the guilt hold me back further.

I’m coming to a new understanding, a new compassion for myself. The person I am is miles and miles ahead of who I could have turned out to be given my past and my inadequacies. I’ve overcome so much and I have so much love and support that has allowed me so much progress and passion in life. I have nothing to feel guilty about. I have nothing holding me back.

So, I’m back to typing my little words. I’m exploring a piece on relationships, another on the ethics of lying, and a third on friendship. I still have an issue with finishing, but I’ll take any small win and worry about the rest when it arrives. For now, having ass in chair, and working on keeping it there for longer and longer stretches of time is enough.

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.