Well, it is official. I have ADD. I’m having some distinct mixed feelings about this. My therapist and psychiatrist both tried to uhhh “explain” why I didn’t get this diagnosis when I was younger in very CYA ways. “Well it is very hard to tell ADD and trauma apart.” “You didn’t show signs of distress.” Wait, whut?

She meant that I am very smart and I was able to pass grades in school so clearly I am totally fine.

But what the ever loving fuck?

I’m finding that I’m still having trouble shaking the strapping down during the second surgery. I keep feeling tightness in my body and when I check in with that part of me, I feel scared.

My shrink said, “It’s natural that you feel this way. Being strapped down like that is a major violation.” It wasn’t the second time. They were trying to keep me from falling off an operating table. That’s not a major violation. It was a major violation when they strapped me down just because they didn’t like my mood. I wish my body would forget. Not all strap-downs work the same way.

I’m having a lot of thoughts about intimacy, sex, love, wanting, keeping score, forgiveness… and I’m totally not ready to write about any of them. Oh the potential fall out.

My heart hurts.

I want my house back. It’s been so fucking long and I’m going stir crazy. I think I only have another week of major construction work before they start on tiling. Oh that would be lovely. I want my floor back in the garage. I want to have a play room so my kids can get their shit off the living room floor. Right now… the living room is the only place to play and we all think that sucks.

I haven’t been inviting people over. There isn’t space.

I am feeling weirdly kinda thrilled about Eldest Child and I both having an accurate diagnosis at this point. That means a lot of my weird rigidness around creating order is… a very functional adaptation to problems we actually have. I’m not just a fascist bitch. YAY! I’ve run across several mentions in the past few days that we all need separate work spaces and I think I’ve decided how I’m going to make that work space wise. Desks in every damn room. So, kid sized desks in the play room and in the sleeping room (which will have room once most of the furniture is taken out like we have scheduled to do…) and the coffee table in the living room and the red table in a corner of the garage where you can’t see Noah. Which will give me four work spaces for little people. Perfect when we have the Bonus Kids.

Cause I’m just a few weeks away from giving every one dedicated work time every day. Because I’ve almost got the bones in place for that.

The littlest two are too young for academics so they can work on art. Play Doh for hand eye acuity or drawing or painting. Sure, why not. I’ve got just about everything in the house. But the littles need their own work so they leave the biggest kids alone for a little bit. Eldest Child is kinda annoyed with me over having to do academics at the rate she is currently doing them. I said, “Hey I asked you if you wanted to start catching up in second grade and you said, ‘Naw wait till next year’ so that means you have a lot to do in one year. Take your medicine.”

I’m not entirely sure we are unschooling any more given that I’m trying to teach the habit of working every day so I mandate structure more than we used to. We are still studying the stuff she asked to study. She picked out the books she’s plowing through… not me. I’m just enforcing the creation of habits.

You are your habits.

I’ve always gotten my planning done in bursts. Noah has been working on developing the habit of checking in every Sunday with long lists of life-preparation-shit. I’m trying to join him and after a few weeks or months I’m going to push the kids to do it as well. Planning out your week just makes everything flow more smoothly. But I need to try and build the habit myself before asking the kids. Too much is changing for them. I need to change me before I can change them.

They both plan like I do at this point: in bursts at random times. It is wonderful for me to listen to them plan things out though. They think like me. It’s incredibly validating. They think about different scenarios and fall backs and logistics and… Oh my babies. You make my heart soar.

I’m a nerd.

I can’t figure out what to do with the bottom left corner of this mosaic. I hate what I have tried so far. Grouse, whine, fuss. Ok, maybe I don’t hate it… but it’s not right yet. I love how I’ve managed to create the idea of differing distances and scale and perspective. I’m a genius.

And so humble.

We’ve been slowly putting all our investment stuff on Mint. As more of our money becomes visible to me…

Holy Fucking Shit.

We have managed to save/pay down debt at the rate of over $100,000/year every year of our marriage. Given what else we’ve done… I’m both terribly impressed with how I’ve managed to stretch the money that far and ashamed I haven’t done better. Especially over the past few years as his salary has been so incredibly high.

I can only afford to do this because Noah happened to pick the most lucrative hobby of his generation as a seven year old kid, he was white, and he came from family money which allowed him to go to one of the best schools in the country.

Privilege is a mother fucker.

Next year, given that I won’t be traveling I hope I pay off/save a combined total of $150,000. (Specifically: investments go up by $50,000, debt will go down by $100,000. That will leave me with ~$60,000 left of debt. I’ll pay that off the next year.) That still, uhh, leaves us a lot to live on. More than I could earn in a year.

Either the year after that or maybe the year after that… we’ll probably hit a million dollars in investments.

Before I’m 40.

My shrink spent a while today trying to tell me that because I am so accomplished how could anyone have been able to tell that I had ADD? I’m so… capable.

I have found some fucktastically effective coping methods, it is true. What could I have done if I had better/more effective support? It’s either terrifying in a good way or maybe a let down. Noah tells me pretty frequently that he thinks I have not come close to my potential yet and he looks forward to seeing what that means.

Resilience. This word keeps coming up. What the fuck does resilience even mean? Don’t give me a text book definition. I can rattle that shit off. But what does it mean feeling like? Cause I’m resilient like fuck and I still feel like a loser.

I had structural power on my side, but that isn’t effective for everyone who has it. Most white people who start out poor like I did do not manage to leap frog to the other side of the socio economic spectrum. Try something. Fail. Get up and try something else. Fail. Repeat.

That’s resilience. It is being willing to try something else after failing. Holy shit I’ve failed so much.

I think I fucked things up with some friends. I think it is my fault. I’m not angry at anyone about the cock up. This is on me.

But I’ll try again. Maybe I won’t pester them, boundaries matter, but I’ll try again in life. It’s a long life. There are a lot of god damn people in the world.

I am propelled forward in life by this deep aching need. A need for love and connection and respect and to be treated well. These are not things I was handed easily or automatically. I’ve had to work.

Try. Fail. Try again.

Sometimes when I hear men complain about how unfair it is that they have to work hard to learn social skills I want to scream and break things. It has been so hard for me. I have fucked up over and over and over and it has been god damn painful.

No sympathy from this corner, buddy.

I have believed all of my life that my brain worked differently than other peoples and I’m getting increasing feedback that I was right. Yeah, things that might be easy for some people are genuinely harder for me.

I ALWAYS GOD DAMN THOUGHT SO.

But you know what, I got this far without outside help figuring out how to help me. That’s pretty good.

*pat self on back*

Good job, self. You aren’t a completely worthless shitpile. Well done.

I was sitting in the back yard recently and I thought, “Well done past self. You were so awesome to do all those hundreds of hours of work. It has really paid off.”

I need to find a balance between work and rest. My future health will depend on me pacing myself and I totally get into work-a-holic periods where I wreck my body. I can’t keep doing it. I need to get this cycle more predictable and workable and sustainable.

My body hurts so much. And there isn’t a lot of point in working hard to make it hurt less before the big work is done because I’ll just hurt myself again in a day.

I have about 14 hours of detail work left in the kitchen. I have to finish the mosaics. I have to paint the play room. I have to empty everything out of the shed so it can be moved then I need to reorganize it because damn my system collapsed. Then I need to sort most of the stuff in the entire house and put it away.

I seriously hope we are done before Christmas.

I’m not sure we will be done with the arbitration which kinda sucks. Sigh.

I am so very weary. Why am I not sleepy?

Can’t sleep. Future will eat me.

Not to mention that this election cycle is awful. The internet is a sad place to be. I should probably stop reading Twitter until after November 8th.

I have filled out my ballot. I’m good.

There’s not a thing on this earth that could make me vote for Trump. Sweet sunny Christmas no.

I’m clearly going to have leftover tile. I’m going to talk to local art teachers. I’ve got enough stuff for several full classes to make reasonable sized mosaics if the tiles were broken up. I’m not sorry I didn’t end up using everything. I’m glad I had the variety. I am really excited about finishing winter. This is going to be so pretty. I have a lot of sparkly tiles. Let it snow; let it snow; let it snow.

I’m over you, autumn. That tree was a motherfucker.

But it’s so prettttttty.

I will be happy that I get to look at you. Making you was still evil.

I’m going to try again on sleep.