ADHD

Last Day Of School

No one in my house is in school so this ‘last day of school’ feeling I have is definitely misplaced but I’ll still roll with it.

Not much is changing between my spring and my summer really but I am definitely changing my perspective on my day to day.

I am insisting on slowing down.

Now I just have the figure out the mechanics of how that can be done.

This is one of the perils of ADHD – What is enough to do? When is a a good time to do it? Where is the line between relaxing and ‘slacking off’ ? Intellectually, I know that slacking off isn’t inherently bad but I also know that there is a point at which I have dialled things back so much that it is hard to start again.

Damned if I know where the line is though.

A longer walk

Yesterday, after a meeting, I decided to walk home.

Most of the year, this walk would be pretty straightforward but with snow still in patches on the paths , it was a bit uncertain.

I still enjoyed it though.

I really like walking for transportation but my ADHD used to get in the way quite often and I would find that I didn’t have quite enough time to get myself to my planned destination and I’d need to take the car.

It was easier if I got dropped off because there was less timing pressure for getting home.

Now though, after years of meditation and conscious work on how to make my own ADHD life flow more smoothly, I can usually plan enough time to walk in either direction or I can decide on the best plan in advance.

All of this is to say that I had an enjoyable walk home yesterday and I felt grateful for a bit of time to move and think and listen to a podcast.

Also, I saw a cool tree.

A grey tree trunk with some parts of the roots above ground
I don’t know exactly what I find so cool but I really like this tree. Image description: the grey trunk of a (currently) leafless medium-sized tree with parts of some of the larger roots visible above ground. The trunk splits into two large parts (branches?) about 3ft from the ground and there is a whole in the branch (?) on the right side that looks like a monster eye. It’s surrounded by dead grass and leaves and there is a big patch of snow and other trees in the background nearby.

Gold Star For Me

As part of my coaching practice, I give out gold stars for effort.

Yes, you read that right.

You get a gold star for the effort you put into your tasks, not just for the result.

I find that so much more rewarding AND it helps people remember that their efforts always matter, no matter how things turn out.

Today has been a bit of a struggle (no crisis, just ordinary hard) but I am putting one foot in front of the other.

Gold star for me!

A drawing of a gold star on a blue background with purple and white embellishments.
A gold star I just drew for myself. Image description: a small drawing of a gold star surrounded by purple and white star outlines against a blue background decorated with white and purple dots. The drawing is resting against a few pens and markers that are spilling out of my pencil case.

Sunday Morning Robots

As I write this, I’m sitting at my kitchen table on a sunny, chilly Sunday morning, watching an episode of Vera and drawing.

I often find it hard to watch TV or a movie without doing something else at the same time. I don’t know if that’s an ADHD thing or just a people thing. Either way, it’s not a reflection on how interesting the show is.

And I often find it hard to get around to drawing all on its own , too. That *is* an ADHD thing, I find it challenging to start any new task that I know will require a lot of focus or that will take a long time. (And since I have a lot of trouble breaking projects into smaller tasks, it always feels like everything will take forever.)

So the TV/drawing combination works for me.

I just have to choose a show that doesn’t require full concentration and a drawing that is about process instead of about thinking up new stuff.

Hence this robot party that’s just getting started in here:

A series of brightly coloured rectangles drawn on white paper.
They aren’t robots yet but they will be soon. Image description: a photo of a drawing of a series of brightly coloured rectangles with a smaller rectangle on top of each one. They’re on a rectangular piece of white paper that’s resting on a wooden table and there is a pile of markers and pens at the top of the image.