This is what I texted to my friend Krystal last night:
‘I’m going to keep my ear out now for the “crazy old person cough.”‘
If you think I’m going to explain, don’t hold your breath. It’s what came next that wrote most of this blog for me.
My phone predicted the rest of the message one slightly coherent word at a time. It began with the name of a town where Krystal and I met for lunch a few months ago. Seemed like a logical prediction. But then it swung wide and grabbed any hanging thought loop it could find. The resulting word chain sounded oddly familiar, like some clanking shackle I’d dragged around before.
You can read the text, and again, I won’t explain any of it, except to say that all of it refers to actual events over the past year of my life, all blurred together. To keep it from becoming complete nonsense, I used bold words to indicate the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. So if it’s bold, say it a second time.
Here you go:
“Mulino. I have papers and tags for them…to get fresh air or light…up to date on vaccines, and…then it shows the upcoming talk for me here, so I can get you one at church…and announcements and Activities with His peer group asked me a great question that maybe someone here can Answer the questions that You have a paper invitation to the right home, Brother and Sister Brandon Flowers and a service auction on the internet to help with the games and the cake walk…in the morning I was running a little behind and felt a little scattered…around the cap if you hold the container upside down or on its side…into the photo…you want to buy one and see if it is as good as the one I bought years ago from Jody Moore, and I have tags and papers…”
Familiar because I though I was past this. Past the racing thoughts, so I’d weaned off the med that helped with that. But when did I come off that med? When did I start with the racing thoughts again? When did I–?
Racing thoughts. Trying to merge onto the Audubon from a right turn.
The motivation is there–I’ve got a full tank (well, my mini-van is all charged up, anyway). Clear flight plan (I wrote a list and all that).
Ready, set,
Stop
If I can just get started, it’ll be downhill from there (is that good or bad?)
Come on, Elissa (I swear I believe)
If it’s all too much, I should ask for help. You know, delegate.
But how do I delegate specific tasks if they fly by like Maverick buzzing the tower again? I try to direct the thought to where it belongs, and it goes blasting past me anyway, gosh darn it.
Alrighty then. You can’t steer a parked car, right? So I try to get going, but mostly I stop, turn on my blinker, and then never move in the direction of my goals. I am staring at a blur, watching for a break in the oncoming traffic. Want to know how that feels? Use your phone’s predictive text for a glimpse into the mind that keeps everything everywhere all at once.*
It’s a good thing my friend is a meditation nut. Hers is one of the rare books I started and then finished in the same calendar year. It sits at my writing desk like a blank billboard proclaiming, “Your name here!”
I meditate sometimes. It’s like taking time to be at one with the blur. Sort of a lotus-position me inside a tornado. Trusting the process. Telling myself this is why I am still seated on my bathroom floor three hours after I told my husband I was going to hop in the shower and then tackle my day. It turns out my day was roaring in my ears so loud I couldn’t hear my inner voice. But now I’ve done some writing, and I think I found her. She told me to check in with my psychiatrist.
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*From the song “Guns for Hands” by Twenty One Pilots. It’s a message to teens caught up in self-harm and suicidal thoughts, and to me, he’s talking about the havoc we wreak on ourselves with with social media. Our thumbs are the ammunition we load into these hands that constantly have a phone in them.
**I honestly didn’t know that a movie by that name existed or that it was based on the ADHD experience. Probably my brain grabbed hold of that tidbit when I was staring into the blur and held onto it *just in case*
the well-rested mother 