I had a lovely little bout of mid-life-crisis depression there last week. You know the sort of thing, I'm sure...the whole "what have I actually accomplished in 40 years?", "Oh hey, look at all that debt I've racked up", "Oooo...nifty, a thoroughly failed marriage under my belt!"...and the list could go on.
Fortunately I have kind of an awesome dad that lets me spew my depressing diatribe via email and he writes back and tells me how I'm using all the wrong factors for measuring my accomplishments by this age. And he made an awful lot of valid points. I was looking at the fact that my parents were purchasing their 2nd house by the time they were 40; we had lived in Europe for several years; my dad had a career that would suit him for a lifetime...but he reminded me that not only were those different times, but also extraordinarily different circumstances than what I find myself in today. He did actually make me feel better in the end.
Then there's this reading I've been doing about a rather serious subject: Adult ADD. Not ADHD. There's a big difference. I've joked for years about having this, but it's become less and less funny and MUCH more serious and difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, without insurance I'm not likely to be able to get an official diagnosis, nor manage to find out if medication would help. Certainly over the years I've tried many of the non-medicinal strategies that books and websites suggest. But I have a really hard time sticking to routines of any sort. I suspect a light dose of something to calm the brain waves down to begin with might make things easier in that regard - which could not only help ME get better control of my life, but help me help my KIDS to gain more control as well. See, the thing is, I'm pretty certain I've been dealing with ADD my entire life. My school career would be the greatest indicator of it. But so would my attempts at being a Virtual Assistant, or learning music, or any number of other activities. Maybe this is a topic I'll delve into more deeply here.
OH, and the impetus for even writing a new post tonight? Another friend of mine over on FB, a friend from high school actually, just started his own blog on blogger tonight (this morning?) and I think it's going to be terrific. Go check him out! It's called "My Bitchen Life" and it should be linked under the blogs I "Follow".
Ok, that's it for tonight. 'Night.
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I'm with your dad: you have an inspiring and admirable list of accomplishments. You're not bad at keeping routines, you're flexible! It's all well and good to acknowledge that we still have a lot to learn, and there are always going to be areas where we can improve, but there's that whole "we're only human" aspect, too. Maybe the "routine" you really need is to take a few minutes before bed and write down all that you did accomplish each day!
ReplyDeleteThanks April. Y'know, the writing down of stuff is actually somewhat helpful for the ADHD-addled brain of mine. I realized a couple of months ago that when I was working in the corporate world, it had been really helpful to use the Franklin Covey organizers and method of prioritizing, etc. Since I thought I was moving into a job with even more responsibility at the time, I went and ordered one again. Ironically it arrived the day i was let go! LOL! BUT I've still been using it to track certain aspects of my life and it really helps. It helps more than keeping track of it on my iPhone calendar actually, which surprised the heck outta me. But it serves the dual purpose of being able to look back over the days and see what actually was being done.
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