I burned my tongue on a lovely chai tea soy latte at Terra yesterday. I met Silke for tea and was early. It was peaceful. And good.
Our time together was also, as always wonderful. There's an immediacy to our connection as we catch up without kids and other grown ups.
Afterward we walked, she with her bike, to the library. There, I discovered with some dismay that they were completely out of 1040 forms. (I am loathe to use up expensive printer ink to print out forms and whatnot.)
I also picked up my latest batch of requested items. Three books on ADD and a young adult novel called The Shadow Project.
Later we enjoyed a delicious family dinner. Cap made burritos.
After dinner I played Wii with the kids while Cap cleaned up. (Our general kitchen rule is that the cook does all clean up. Our styles in the kitchen are quite different and this rule is at my request.)
While Cap tucked the kids in and made himself some movie watching dessert, I sat down with one of the ADD books: Add-Friendly Ways To Organize Your Life. It is co-authored by a professional organizer and a psychologist who specializes in ADD.
I read the first 20 pages, my jaw dropping lower and lower as the sentences started flying past my eyes.
It was like a klieg light clanked on, shining brightly on me, on aspects of my life. Incredible. Wow wow wow wow wow.
7 comments:
Someone in your family has ADD?
I think I do!! Maybe not diagnosable, it's on the mild side and clearly, I've been able to compensate pretty well. Sue, my mind is being blown...
Methinks I should read that ;-)
Ok, gotta ask, why is your picture reversed? I know you've said something about it before but I don't remember. It's hurting my brain trying to read (especially with the little type).
Sorry...I tried to find an image of the book this morning online...didn't get too far before I decided to just self-portrait. The image is reversed because I use the camera built into the computer screen...
If you follow the link in the body of the post it should bring you to the book on Amazon where you can see the cover and all :-)
Wow, Shirley...yes, I do believe you've compensated so well. What made you think about reading these books?
A few things sort of came together recently:
• my personal work brought me to a point of clarity where I was no longer self-loathing/in denial about certain difficulties I've had around organizing myself in specific areas of my life.
• "undisciplined" and "lazy" were identities that weren't helping to produce concrete results in my process of growth. (I could live with undisciplined as a label and was begrudgingly accepting of lazy.)
• a couple of women I know had mentioned identifying themselves as having ADD. (I didn't identify with them, but the notion was simply in the air.)
• I googled a self-assessment tool and was surprised to find I checked off more than just a few items.
I've only just begun to skim the books, but it's amazing how concretely they speak to and about me.
Also interesting to see some clear connections to experiences and memories of myself as a child, a teen and as a young adult. This is something that's always been there...
Just had a thought: I often felt I went against the stereotype of the overachieving Asian kid because I felt like an underachiever. I have an anti-establishment streak in me so wore my underachievement as a misguided badge of pride for awhile...
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