When I was younger I would spend hours and hours in my room playing office. When I was in second grade, I was asked what I wanted for my birthday and I told my Dad that I wanted a file cabinet. So down to the Hardware store we went and my Dad bought me a file cabinet. I still have it. Most kids hang on to a keepsake teddy bear and I have a file cabinet. No plush adorable childhood playmate to still snuggle with from time to time, I have a cold, metal file cabinet from 1968 sitting down in the basement. I remember that I also had my Dad get me two stick on letters (the kind you would put on your mail box) I chose “A” and “B”. “A” ofcourse was adhered to the top drawer and “B” to the bottom drawer.
It amazes me that this file cabinet above anything and everything has followed me through my life.
Part of me feels that it represents my ADD in some regards. The fact that I was concerned about organizing at that young age and then GOT the file cabinet and never really knew how to truly utilize it... filing... another chapter... I feel like I just want to toss it!
But I don't know if I can. Sometimes I think, symbolically it would be an amazing thing to be able to do.
So my days of playing office led to my obsessing over my school notebooks. I never could stand anything to be bent, torn, scribbled on, smeared ink... there have been times that I would just up and toss the entire notebook because the cover was bent or damaged. It's weird, but that is what goes on in my head.
I feel like the stucture of how my brain works is hindered. It's like being crippled in some regards that I can only get past a certain point when going after something, daily things that everyone has to do, for me are very difficult because the way my brain is wired hinders me. I crave order, I like predictability, I like things neat and in a row. Normally this is a good thing, people are impressed with such a thing but for me, it's more compulsion. But it's not OCD. It could be but what happens is my ADD smashes any possibility of that. Whenever I see stuff out of order or a mess on the table or a pile of papers, instead of diving in and systematically putting it in order, my instinct is to just shove it off into a corner.
I actually believe that if I could ALLOW a bit of OCD to filter in it might actually HELP me!
For years I have described a membrane force field that exists between me and the view I have of my life. I have always felt that I could see out there what I wanted but there was this plastic, rubbery see through membrane between myself and my reality. There was even a cloned me who I watched carry on with my life as I sat frustrated that the “other” me was out there fucking everything up.
If friends and family were to hear me say I feel unaccomplished they would laugh at me. I have done quite a lot of things but I always felt that I never got to the point with those projects where I would have been impressed, proud... Everything I have ever done has only gotten SO far.
Because of this I am haunted by the “what could have been's” bouncing around in my head, or more so just sort of sitting in the back, grumpy and smoking cigarettes and telling me that I am a failure. I want to turn around to those voices and tell them to shut up. I don't dare confront them because the sad thing is I BELIEVE them.
Yesterday, Jason and I were out at the Mall and I was telling him of my friend Julia and what a positive influence she always has been with me. I told him how I loved being with her and absorbing that wonderful energy she always had. (She still has it!) “Anything I ever told her I wanted to do, she was so supportive.” I told Jason. ” When she was living in New York, she would say, ‘Robbie... the city is our oyster and WE are the pearls.” We sat in silence for a second or two and Jason said, “but you never believed her did you.” I didn't. That was the sad thing. I NEVER believed her. I wanted to, but like that membrane thing, I felt I was on one side and THEY, the successful people were on the other side. Something was always gettting in my way.
A tangible thing that can help me see the way I get stuck is the “TO DO LIST”.
I hear those words and I feel like I own them.
When I hear others talking about THEIR lists I almost get a little jealous.
To me, this list, the method of this list is WHERE I get stuck.
Before “Dayplanners” came along I never even knew what a “TO DO LIST” was. I knew of a shopping list. I MADE lists in my journal. But when I started getting into Planners and saw words like “PRIORITIZED DAILY TASK LISTS” I got caught in some kind of spell. It became all about creating a perfect list, jam packed with all manner of GREAT ideas and things to ACCOMPLISH. But I would obsess over how the list would look, how I would create it, finding the perfect planner to create it in, finding a SYSTEM to help me do this. I would spend hours exploring all kinds of software... I would spend hundreds of dollars on this concept alone. And once I would have my “system”, I would get distracted, think it was because the list wasn't quite right and thought that getting a new kind of list, spending more time re-inventing the list, THEN and only THEN would my life suddenly get on track.
Well, the train has left. I am still at the station.
Like my file cabinet, this list concept perhaps could be something I should also let go of. NOT abandon, but STOP holding onto it so tightly. Nothing gets done. It seems to be more comforting for me to dwell on the list and not on the reality. It is so much EASIER to write down a task then to actually do it. Part of me almost feels that by writing it down I have DONE it. Yet, I am behind in my work, in my life. I see time passing by and I feel helpless.
So what can I do?
My instinct tells me to just not dwell on it.
LET GO of systems. Pretend that they don't exist. Perhaps the problem is that I have SURPASSED the need for systems but don't believe it. I could actually MANAGE WITHOUT a list.
My friend Sam told me that he thinks my being scattered could actually be an asset. He told me that sometimes a persons weakness could also be one of their greatest strengths.