so, as per usual, the calendar has made a liar out of me. it's really been a month since i've written here? guess i'm not back after all.
over the past month (or two) (see, i think 'a month' but then when i really stop and consult my calendar i see that it's actually been twice that.. which does seem to be a common theme in my life), i've been examining my life under the influence of a new drug. er, i mean, a new diagnosis. i haven't wanted to blog about it because i just wasn't sure where it would all net out and i'm not really up to the scrutiny and pontification on the subject from everyone i know.
but anyway, here i am. anyone that knows me, or my blog, knows i have serious memory issues. it's always been this way and it's pervasive, from the experiences in my own recent history (sometimes as recent as yesterday) to the basic world history facts we all learned in elementary school (and ad nauseum every academic year thereafter). i've blamed it on my sleep disorder and i've credited it as a coping mechanism and i've chalked it up to too many artificial sweeteners. but hell, i didn't know.
what i did know is that i've always lived in a daydream.. one foot on the ground, but just barely, and just not entirely present. unless i'm high on adrenaline for some reason: drama, passion, despair. now i come to find out, much to my amazement, it's not just a trait of my zodiac sign, but apparently a function of my brain mal-function. my attention deficit brain. yep, as a 37 year old woman, i've been diagnosed with adhd. go figure.
when i mentioned it to my long term, but occasional, therapist, she said, 'oh yeah, i know. it's right here in this paperwork you did in 2005. you scored in the clinical range then.' i said, 'really? we never talked about it,' vaguely recalling her mentioning and then dismissing it (or did i?). she said, 'it wasn't something you were concerned with...' i didn't know then what i know now.
in my usual somewhat obsessive way, i immediately read three academic books on both the established and latest research and quickly realized that i've been a textbook case all my life, and wow could things have been different for me had i known.
i won't bore you, or myself, with the intricacies of my discovery; but let's just say it's been a mixed bag. exciting and depressing. frustrating and hopeful. addition and subtraction.
in the addition column i place a new ability to hear my boys. i can listen to an entire monologue of teenage antics, classroom hijinks, or play-by-play plot narration of the latest hawaii five o without zoning out. it's changed my entire relationship with my sons. i also count the ability to work, when i need to - rather than when the deadline is looming, and effectively cross things off my to-do list. i find in the addition column a real sense of calm. (ironically, since i'm taking a stimulant right?) i find that i can put my mind in a place..and it stays there.
sidenote: that one is a bit disconcerting, actually. i have to be careful not to put it somewhere negative, because i won't easily get distracted from that negative place.. and i can linger in a bad memory or a self-destructive thought for way longer than i'm accustomed to. it's curious.
other additions: significant loss of interest in food (yippee!) and unlimited energy for exercise (double yippee!). an ability to stay engaged in a tennis match, all the way to its bitter end. (yes, i could find myself daydreaming in between serve and return prior to this. not a good thing for a scoring match.) i also feel more positive, empathic feelings, for the people in my life who i love. i often find myself simply loving them more. appreciating them more. i know these feelings have been there all along, but i couldn't still myself long enough to feel, let alone express, them.
but every half full glass is also half empty, and the subtractions are there too. when my mind used to flit from thing to thing, it was electric. not energizing in a particularly productive way, like a power plant, but more like static electricity - a spark. i never knew where i'd land, mentally, and that made it sort of fun. my mind is quiet now. and sometimes it's so quiet, it even bores me. hence, now that i have the ability to focus and theoretically write (!), the spark is so dim, i barely feel it.
that's about it though. i guess that's pretty good. mostly additions. just one notable subtraction. i know that i'll figure it out. i know that i'll find other ways to generate that spark. it's flickering in the embers..waiting for a steady bellow to ignite it. steady, i have. the bellow? it's coming..
d: more add, less sub
b: only 37 years distracted, many more to be present
g: access to the steady..steadily making me a better person
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
once-in-a-lifetime
so, i'm sure nobody expected me to be writing again so soon. i mean, if i had a dime for every time i said, 'i'm getting back to my blog' i wouldn't be stressing the wedding expenses..or anything else. but here i am, less than 24 hours later, and burning with a topic about which i want to vent, er i mean, creatively express myself.
and i can't.
or rather, i shouldn't.
in a rare exercise of self-restraint i'm going to keep my mouth, and fingers, quiet on this particular topic. and instead write about ... ummm. i'm not sure.
this morning i registered todd for a school trip to spain next spring. (yes, they promote early sign-up to help offset the ginormous expense.) it's one of those things where i felt my heart flutter when i did it because i know it's a very big deal, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a young teen. i get a thrill out of giving the boys things i never had. but the magnitude doesn't escape me.
i've felt a similar flutter as we write checks for the wedding, but it's not quite as easy. i keep reminding myself that i deserve this once-in-a-lifetime experience too.
today i'm choosing to trust in the flow of the universe. in the flow of abundance. i trust that everything will work out as it should. todd will have his trip. we'll have the wedding. and the irs..well, they can get in line. as best i can tell, they aren't going anywhere.
d: trust in the flow
b: restraint of the tongue
g: abundance
and i can't.
or rather, i shouldn't.
in a rare exercise of self-restraint i'm going to keep my mouth, and fingers, quiet on this particular topic. and instead write about ... ummm. i'm not sure.
this morning i registered todd for a school trip to spain next spring. (yes, they promote early sign-up to help offset the ginormous expense.) it's one of those things where i felt my heart flutter when i did it because i know it's a very big deal, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a young teen. i get a thrill out of giving the boys things i never had. but the magnitude doesn't escape me.
i've felt a similar flutter as we write checks for the wedding, but it's not quite as easy. i keep reminding myself that i deserve this once-in-a-lifetime experience too.
today i'm choosing to trust in the flow of the universe. in the flow of abundance. i trust that everything will work out as it should. todd will have his trip. we'll have the wedding. and the irs..well, they can get in line. as best i can tell, they aren't going anywhere.
d: trust in the flow
b: restraint of the tongue
g: abundance
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
comeback
today i played my third tennis match of the season. i won. in three sets. (which means i lost the first one, in case you're as tennis illiterate as i was two years ago.)
at some point in the first set i noticed that my mind was already doing the calculations on my division rating assuming a loss. i was even crafting a facebook status despairing the match. in the first set. and when i realized where my head was, that i'd already mentally thrown in the towel, i had a come-to-jesus moment with myself. the score was 1-5 at that point. i managed to win the next two games to bring the first set to a 3-6 close.
when i walked to the baseline to serve for the first game of the second set i said to myself, 'so now you're going to have to play three sets.' and after my opponent won the first two games of the second set, i told myself to focus only on 'play your best tennis for this point, just this one,' before each point.
and when i won the next three games in a row i suddenly had a vision of my last match. why it hadn't popped into my consciousness before that is beyond me. in that particular match, i'd quickly won the first set, but then found myself in the second set down 1-5. and came back to win 7-6. five games in a row. and a tie break.
i'm the comeback kid! i repeated this affirmation to myself for the remaining dozen or so games and indeed it was true.
it's been a month since i've written creatively. in consideration of the month i've had, i've been disappointed that my writing hasn't flourished. i've accessed some things in myself that have been long out of reach - perhaps always out of reach. and yet, the one thing i most want more of, i haven't been able to access at all.
there have been many other lulls in my writing... but usually those times are wall to wall with ideas and not enough focus or time to put them onto paper. and this was the opposite. desire and focus and time..and no ideas. it's been boggling to me.
tonight on our way home from todd's taekwondo classes in snellville, i was racking my brain for any creative buds. wishing i had something, anything at all even, to inspire me. and here i landed.
i'm a comeback kid.
not particularly inspired, but somewhat reassured. i may be down a handful of games, but i know i'll comeback. consider this your warning, or perhaps the literary equivalent of a save-the-date, my creative comeback is at hand. and i hope you will too.
d: continued comeback victories
b: i can comeback from significant deficits
g: the hint of inspiration comingback
at some point in the first set i noticed that my mind was already doing the calculations on my division rating assuming a loss. i was even crafting a facebook status despairing the match. in the first set. and when i realized where my head was, that i'd already mentally thrown in the towel, i had a come-to-jesus moment with myself. the score was 1-5 at that point. i managed to win the next two games to bring the first set to a 3-6 close.
when i walked to the baseline to serve for the first game of the second set i said to myself, 'so now you're going to have to play three sets.' and after my opponent won the first two games of the second set, i told myself to focus only on 'play your best tennis for this point, just this one,' before each point.
and when i won the next three games in a row i suddenly had a vision of my last match. why it hadn't popped into my consciousness before that is beyond me. in that particular match, i'd quickly won the first set, but then found myself in the second set down 1-5. and came back to win 7-6. five games in a row. and a tie break.
i'm the comeback kid! i repeated this affirmation to myself for the remaining dozen or so games and indeed it was true.
it's been a month since i've written creatively. in consideration of the month i've had, i've been disappointed that my writing hasn't flourished. i've accessed some things in myself that have been long out of reach - perhaps always out of reach. and yet, the one thing i most want more of, i haven't been able to access at all.
there have been many other lulls in my writing... but usually those times are wall to wall with ideas and not enough focus or time to put them onto paper. and this was the opposite. desire and focus and time..and no ideas. it's been boggling to me.
tonight on our way home from todd's taekwondo classes in snellville, i was racking my brain for any creative buds. wishing i had something, anything at all even, to inspire me. and here i landed.
i'm a comeback kid.
not particularly inspired, but somewhat reassured. i may be down a handful of games, but i know i'll comeback. consider this your warning, or perhaps the literary equivalent of a save-the-date, my creative comeback is at hand. and i hope you will too.
d: continued comeback victories
b: i can comeback from significant deficits
g: the hint of inspiration comingback
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
nest
we officially moved into our house on yorkshire seven months ago. it seems like years since we lived in snellville though. that being said, it's taken a full seven months to make our yorkie house feel like home, as convoluted as that may sound.
when we found the house we knew it had good bones. as they say. the spaces felt good. color on the walls immediately helped. but then after that it's taken a while to go from the temporary furniture we picked up to our real vision for the house.. but now it's here.
when we first saw the house, this was the living room..
when we first moved in, i bought some tide-us-over type furniture that was the right size, but not the right anything else. it was used and inexpensive. and it did the trick. except it didn't. it was leather. and it was white. and it was cold. in every way. we endured it when we had to, but we didn't hang out in there on it.
just so you can have the proper comparison, here's a snapshot of it that i used when i sold it. it doesn't show the full room, but you can imagine. (ignore the mess, please.)
and so i sold it. (incidentally, for only $50 less than i paid for it. pretty damn good for six months of use, i'd say.)
and now.. this is the living room..
or maybe this is a better angle?
sigh.. these pictures really don't do it justice. just trust me, for the first time since we moved in, both haley and i are content to be here. we have a perch. we have a nest.
we have a home.
d: the spare box springs in our library to have a new home
b: our nest is beautifully feathered
g: house turned home.. at last
when we found the house we knew it had good bones. as they say. the spaces felt good. color on the walls immediately helped. but then after that it's taken a while to go from the temporary furniture we picked up to our real vision for the house.. but now it's here.
when we first saw the house, this was the living room..
when we first moved in, i bought some tide-us-over type furniture that was the right size, but not the right anything else. it was used and inexpensive. and it did the trick. except it didn't. it was leather. and it was white. and it was cold. in every way. we endured it when we had to, but we didn't hang out in there on it.
just so you can have the proper comparison, here's a snapshot of it that i used when i sold it. it doesn't show the full room, but you can imagine. (ignore the mess, please.)
and so i sold it. (incidentally, for only $50 less than i paid for it. pretty damn good for six months of use, i'd say.)
and now.. this is the living room..
or maybe this is a better angle?
sigh.. these pictures really don't do it justice. just trust me, for the first time since we moved in, both haley and i are content to be here. we have a perch. we have a nest.
we have a home.
d: the spare box springs in our library to have a new home
b: our nest is beautifully feathered
g: house turned home.. at last
Sunday, January 30, 2011
blue
went and saw blue valentine tonight. what a bummer. tremendous acting and writing. but heartbreaking.
i think because it seems so real. so believable. and so scary.
here i am on the precipice of making a lifelong commitment and in every way certain of my intention and love and at the same time shoveling the earth off a buried dinosaur egg in my own personality and uncertain how to pry it loose and scared that i can't and feeling so much like damaged goods and unable to be deserving of the love and commitment i'm receiving.
and blue valentine didn't help.
d: a better me
b: writing it down, letting it go
g: i am loved
i think because it seems so real. so believable. and so scary.
here i am on the precipice of making a lifelong commitment and in every way certain of my intention and love and at the same time shoveling the earth off a buried dinosaur egg in my own personality and uncertain how to pry it loose and scared that i can't and feeling so much like damaged goods and unable to be deserving of the love and commitment i'm receiving.
and blue valentine didn't help.
d: a better me
b: writing it down, letting it go
g: i am loved
Friday, January 28, 2011
k.i.s.s.
hi, my name is jessica. i'm a bride eight and a half months from my wedding date and it's been twenty days since my last blogging.
it probably goes without saying that my obsession du jour is wedding planning but i've also read three (and a half) novels and two non-fiction books totally unrelated to said obsession over the past four weeks. so multiply that by two or three, to include the wedding magazines, websites and books, and you'll see that i've still been totally immersed in words despite my own writing hiatus.
but i do miss it.
this planning process has to be one of the most complex, multi-layered, and emotion laden projects i've ever managed. and without a doubt, the most fun too. haley and i regularly look at each other and say, 'it's not supposed to be this easy!'. (and then i try to make something hard, that really isn't. and she shakes her head and tells me how ridiculous i am. but never mind that.)
so, now we can check off pretty much everything related to the reception: venue, caterer, music, and much of the decor. we can check off most of the essential ceremony stuff too..though that's still coming together. (thank god - or what would i do for the next eight months?) and now i'm thinking that if i don't put myself back on some sort of disciplined writing schedule, i will certainly regret it. this is a time in my life that i want to remember. (and we all know i won't, if i don't write it down.)
on monday it will be two years to the day since haley and i first laid eyes on each other. two years from the day that our respective universes shifted and ever so subtly began to increasingly overlap. two years from the day that a spark lit a fire..a fire that has lit up the skyline of my life.
but my effort tonight to put words to paper is about more than just a heart overflowing with love and excitement, it's also about taking inventory. taking inventory and making an insight into some of my own deficiencies and potentially an approach to bring about change.
things as simple as giving myself a bedtime (and setting an alarm to remind me to honor it) and carving out a time for writing; these things change me. there are more complex tactics i'm undertaking as well and eventually perhaps i'll share..but for now.. one of my favorite twelve step slogans perhaps says it best: k.i.s.s.
keep it simple, sweetie.
(yes, that's the kinder, gentler version. i don't believe in calling myself stupid. others have done it quite enough already, thanks.)
d: let it begin with me
b: one day at a time
g: thanks for listening
it probably goes without saying that my obsession du jour is wedding planning but i've also read three (and a half) novels and two non-fiction books totally unrelated to said obsession over the past four weeks. so multiply that by two or three, to include the wedding magazines, websites and books, and you'll see that i've still been totally immersed in words despite my own writing hiatus.
but i do miss it.
this planning process has to be one of the most complex, multi-layered, and emotion laden projects i've ever managed. and without a doubt, the most fun too. haley and i regularly look at each other and say, 'it's not supposed to be this easy!'. (and then i try to make something hard, that really isn't. and she shakes her head and tells me how ridiculous i am. but never mind that.)
so, now we can check off pretty much everything related to the reception: venue, caterer, music, and much of the decor. we can check off most of the essential ceremony stuff too..though that's still coming together. (thank god - or what would i do for the next eight months?) and now i'm thinking that if i don't put myself back on some sort of disciplined writing schedule, i will certainly regret it. this is a time in my life that i want to remember. (and we all know i won't, if i don't write it down.)
on monday it will be two years to the day since haley and i first laid eyes on each other. two years from the day that our respective universes shifted and ever so subtly began to increasingly overlap. two years from the day that a spark lit a fire..a fire that has lit up the skyline of my life.
but my effort tonight to put words to paper is about more than just a heart overflowing with love and excitement, it's also about taking inventory. taking inventory and making an insight into some of my own deficiencies and potentially an approach to bring about change.
things as simple as giving myself a bedtime (and setting an alarm to remind me to honor it) and carving out a time for writing; these things change me. there are more complex tactics i'm undertaking as well and eventually perhaps i'll share..but for now.. one of my favorite twelve step slogans perhaps says it best: k.i.s.s.
keep it simple, sweetie.
(yes, that's the kinder, gentler version. i don't believe in calling myself stupid. others have done it quite enough already, thanks.)
d: let it begin with me
b: one day at a time
g: thanks for listening
Saturday, January 8, 2011
gestation
nine months from this night i'll be celebrating my marriage to the love of my life.
nine months.
the only other times in my life i've been as invested in nine months i was growing my sons. here in the first trimester of growing a wedding i'm experiencing the same single-minded focus, frenzied excitement, and occasional waves of nervous nausea i did then. happy to report though, unlike my pregnancies, no vomiting this time.
every day it seems a new idea is born or a new vision clarified and our manifesting energy is working overtime. our excitement is contagious and we have yet to be met with anything but loving support. and for that we are grateful. it seems that for all the hysterical panic over the sanctity of marriage, the community in which we reside is surprisingly enamored with our engagement. from the office to the bridal shops to the blockbuster counter, i've received heartfelt well wishes from virtual strangers.
though we haven't cleared the first trimester, we're almost ready to sound the trumpets. stay tuned. details are coming soon.
d: a wedding as beautiful as the relationship it is celebrating
b: my extraordinary project management skills are coming in handy
g: the loving reception our wedding has already received
nine months.
the only other times in my life i've been as invested in nine months i was growing my sons. here in the first trimester of growing a wedding i'm experiencing the same single-minded focus, frenzied excitement, and occasional waves of nervous nausea i did then. happy to report though, unlike my pregnancies, no vomiting this time.
every day it seems a new idea is born or a new vision clarified and our manifesting energy is working overtime. our excitement is contagious and we have yet to be met with anything but loving support. and for that we are grateful. it seems that for all the hysterical panic over the sanctity of marriage, the community in which we reside is surprisingly enamored with our engagement. from the office to the bridal shops to the blockbuster counter, i've received heartfelt well wishes from virtual strangers.
though we haven't cleared the first trimester, we're almost ready to sound the trumpets. stay tuned. details are coming soon.
d: a wedding as beautiful as the relationship it is celebrating
b: my extraordinary project management skills are coming in handy
g: the loving reception our wedding has already received
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