One Year

One year. It's been one year.

One year since I started ADHD meds.
One year since Benjamin and I started dating.
One year since the first weekend I spent in a small 3-bedroom house in Kyle, Texas.
One year since my apartment was broken into.
One year since I met Jakal.

It's been one hell of a year.

I am a being made of stories and milestones. I will take almost any moment and turn it into something significant. I spend a lot of time considering my life Before something and After something. I separate my life into little pieces trying to understand it better by examining it closely. Trying to understand myself better.

I think part of the motivation of this impulse is my complicated relationship with time (thanks, ADHD. Thanks, trauma.) I struggle to see the past in the right light, I struggle to believe in the future in any solid way. So I drop milestones like breadcrumbs, hoping that if I stand here, looking back over all my little pieces, that I might start to understand something. I might know where I came from, how I got here, and where to go next.

One year since I started ADHD meds. I seem to be in the lucky minority that started on the right med and stuck with it. I've increased my dosage once in the past year. There might be better options that work better with my brain, and I might explore them at some point. For now, though, these work. I know that my life has been different on medication. Most days, sitting still is a lot easier. Reading is enjoyable again. I can tell a story without getting totally lost in the weeds, although Ben and a few other people can confirm a tendency to wander. My driving is a little less reckless. I don't feel quite the same need to jump at every opportunity to get a hit of dopamine. I have some struggles with appetite, as most stimulants suppress that. I've lost about 30 pounds in the past year, and gained about 7 of it back when I started on my new antidepressant. Ups, downs, but undeniably different.

One year since Ben and I started dating. By this time last year we had been talking for 6 months already. That's how long it took me to get up the courage to ask him if dating was something we were already doing. He said yes and that he'd been thinking about it as well. I can pretty much guarantee you that he hadn't brought it up because it just hadn't occurred to him to do so. Milestones don't mean quite the same thing to him as they do to me. But it's been a year. A year of learning each other and learning ourselves together. A year of me slowly getting better at communication, slowly getting better at trust, and slowly getting better at hope. A year of Ben learning how to express love so I feel it, learning to ask me again when I say I'm okay, learning that dating a hyperactive puppy of a person is an absolute blessing even when it's kind of exhausting. A year of "I talked to Ben, and I feel better now." A year of patience for ourselves and each other. A year of stretching ourselves to accommodate the needs and desires of another person. A year of learning where we are not capable of or willing to stretch. A year of me learning to stand up for myself, to hold my needs up and say "these are important." I'm not there yet, but I'm a year closer than I was.

One year since the first time I stayed at the Kyle House. These are my people. I didn't know it a year ago, but this is my family. We are still figuring each other out, but they've been stuck with me since this weekend last year. I walked into that house, and part of my heart never left it.  I couldn't have imagined this path of my life this time last year. I had already started thinking about what it might be like to live in Austin, to move closer to my people, to get a little space from home. I didn't have any clue I would be moving in with my people, however. I didn't know the home I was making, but I've spent the year making it all the same. Come September, I'll be going home.

One year since my apartment got broken into. I don't have a whole lot to say about that. It's just... been a year, hasn't it?

One year since I met Jakal. This one is off by about two weeks because I've been saving some bits and pieces for this anniversary blog. A year ago I met someone who could have disappeared into the background noise of my past. Could have just... been a blip, a little light, a snapshot of a perfect weird night. But I kept this one. Held on real tight, and here were are, a year later. Not a lot has changed between us, except that we know each other better. We're partners now, and while I can tell you the day we said it, I don't have a clue when it started. I know that a year ago I said "hey universe, this one is mine, we'll figure out the details later." That's still where we are. He have right now, we have trust that the other person makes time when they can, trust that the other person has our best interests at heart, and trust that we're going to take this one day at a time and just see what happens. I have a person who loves me and who encourages my honesty and openness and feeling at every opportunity. A year of that kind of solid, steady presence, even when it's far away, can work wonders. It has worked wonders in my life.

The past year has been hard as hell. If you're reading this blog you probably know most of it, and if you don't, there's plenty you can learn here. I had to grow up big time, and it feels like that isn't going to stop any time soon. But it has been a year of love and light and flourishing, too. May the road ahead always be smoother than the road behind, or may you be capable of handling the rough patches.

Signs of Stability

This month, I am on track to finish a bottle of shampoo for the first time since I started buying my own shampoo. I have finished an entire pen for the first time. I just finished a stick of deodorant. I'm about to finish my second tube of toothpaste ever.

These are little things. They are things that I might not admit to every person that knows me (except, well, here I am.) They are little things that are very big to me. These are the little hallmarks of emotional, physical, and mental stability that I haven't had in a long time. If I ever had them. I'm showering on a regular basis, I only own two bottles of shampoo right now, and I'm going to use this one all up before I buy a new one. The same is true of the deodorant. I kept track of one single pen for multiple months, and journaled at least a little bit almost every day. I'm brushing my teeth almost every day, a habit I only started in October of last year.

I am maintaining habits, I am staying focused, I am able to take care of myself and keep track of my belongings. I haven't lost half of everything I own since last August! Stability! It isn't perfect, my stability isn't complete, but damn. It's nice to settle into my own life a little bit.

The Future

I make a lot of jokes about not believing in the future, but I had a conversation yesterday that made me realize that that isn't precisely true.

I know that time passes (at least in our perception). Things come and go. I know that the future will happen.

What I don't believe in is the longevity of things. Relationships, possessions, situations, jobs, etc. None of these things stick around. I have been given a lot of proof throughout my life that this is true. This is just how life works. I'm still trying to process that information and understand how it has affected my decisions over time.

It's not that I don't plan for the future. I just don't plan for the future that depends on anything being the same.
"Am I going to live in this apartment next year?"
Who knows?
"Am I going to be working at this job in a year or so?"
No way to tell.
"This D&D game is going to last the next few months."
Bold assumption, friend.

In a few months (67 days, according to the countdown app on my phone) I will be moving in with new housemates. I'm going to be relocating from Houston to Austin. I'm going to go from living alone, as I have for the past 18 months, to living with 4 other people. I'm moving in with one of my partners. Count the ways that could go wrong.

It is a stretch for me to believe that this thing will come to pass. I am hoping for it, I am depending on it, and I have a small voice in the back of my head telling me that it won't work out. The group won't want me. Something will go wrong with my finances. I can't do this.

So many events in my life prove to me that everything is fleeting. People leave. Hurricanes eat your apartment. Your storage unit gets broken into. Your mom decides to move to Virginia. Your mom moves home from Virginia and leaves half of your stuff behind. Your best friend stops speaking to you, probably because of a boy. You kind of planned forever in this relationship, but you've been unhappy for 6 months and it finally ends. Your contract position with that company doesn't get extended.

Things end. The future is unpredictable.

What the hell do I do about that? How do I live my life with that certainty in my head?

I think that I do what I've been doing for awhile now. Stick to the old cliché: expect the best, but plan for the worst. It would be too easy for me to fall into certainty that something will go wrong. I could refuse to make plans, refuse to move forward with my life, or refuse to buy things that I know that I need because I'll just lose it later.

Instead, I'm going to work on believing anyway. I choose to look my fear of and certainty of failure in the face, and I am telling them to fuck off. I am asking a lot of myself, but I'm going to try.

My motto lately has been this: Believe right up until the moment you can't anymore. Don't leave yourself completely unprepared for disaster, but don't hold yourself back from good things.

Keep your extra silverware. Don't sell your microwave. Sell the dining chairs you don't need. Move in with your friends anyway. Trust anyway.  Accept the possibility of loss, but also accept the possibility of failure.

The future might disappoint me, but it might bring me joy.

Good/Bad Days and Self-Care with ADHD

As a person with a couple mental illnesses, one of the things I have to be aware of is that I will have good days and bad days.

The depression-mania spectrum of bipolar disorder interacts with the function scale of my ADHD and executive dysfunction in interesting ways. I can control for some of these factors by managing my routine and medication, but sometimes it's just going to be a bad day. Or a good day that means the next few days are rough. With all that in mind, I have to prepare myself for either kind of day. Or week. Or month.

Today, I'm focusing that preparation on cleaning. I've got a guest coming this weekend, and my apartment is in mid-level disaster mode at the moment. It could certainly be worse, but I'm aiming to impress this particular visitor, so I'm hoping to get it up to untidy, at least. I've started making lists.

On the left is my deep cleaning list. This is the goal, on any good week. When I'm at the point where my apartment needs to be really clean, I'm going to turn to this page and see what's lacking. On the top of the right page is a breakdown of the Laundry item from deep clean. Bottom right is my list for when everything's gone to shit, I haven't seen a good day in a week or two, and I just need to be able to function in my space. 

Today's ADHD self-care is not judging myself for any of these lists. 

The deep clean list is broken down by room (my apartment is very small), and then by task, and then by the steps and pieces of that task. There are a few I probably could have broken down a little further, which is exactly what I did with laundry, but this is a good start. I've made a list that I won't look at and get overwhelmed, though it might seem like a lot to another person. I don't have to remember all of the steps to the process. I don't have to guess whether or not I've got something done. I get to check off extra boxes for every step! (This kind of instant reward helps give my brain that dopamine hit it's looking for.) It's a good list.

The laundry list is also broken down pretty far. Keeping my clothes clean is a constant struggle, and often it's a pretty low priority for me. Most people have the "I don't have clean underwear" line, and I have a similar one, but it's in a different place. I have a washer/dryer in my apartment, and I still don't do laundry near as often as I ought. So this list is, once again, my deep clean list. If I'm trying to get everything done, it all gets gathered, and then sorted, and then washed. And if I get really lucky with the energy and spoons and motivation, it might get put away. These are my sorting categories, and then the priority by which the loads are washed. Then I have where everything goes when I put it away.

The bottom list is for the really bad days. When I'm coming home from work and falling onto my couch and hopefully getting dinner before I'm done with the day. When I just need to be able to function. I need clean bowls because I eat all of my food out of bowls. I need to be able to sit in my spot on the couch. I need my side of the bed to have enough room for me. I need there to not be any food growing things or smelling bad. It doesn't make for a fun space, and sometimes it gets kind of gross, but it gets me through the day. And when I start noticing how gross it is, I know I'm doing better. When I can get up and run the dishwasher, I'm definitely getting better.

But I'm prepared for both kinds of days. And I'm doing that preparation without hating myself. Part of my self-care is also sharing this process. I hope it reaches someone who needs to know they aren't alone. I hope it shows people that sometimes, even the "simplest" task has too many steps to remember properly without help. And you can still be okay, even on the bad days.

Do the Work

Y’all, I have a friend whose preferred pronouns are none. Use no pronouns.

If anybody thought that being queer and genderfluid and aware made any of this easier, please take note. Our language wasn’t built to take care of people, our social conventions about repeating someone’s name a lot (ie- don’t) don’t leave a lot of room to take care of people. It isn’t *easy* to rewrite the way you speak in your head, I know that. (I’ve heard it from so many of my friends and family, too.)

It’s still worth it tho. It still matters to me to take care of this person and to treat my friend with respect. My mental gymnastics are my problem, not my friend’s.

Don’t get complacent because you think you know everything already. Be ready to let your paradigm shift again and again because we are changing the world to take care of each other. Do the work.

We're Dating?

I have a tendency to let relationships build kind of... as they’re going to, and this largely stems from a fear of being more invested than the other person and showing weakness by asking the “so what are we?” question.

It leads to some moments like

“we’ve been talking regularly for 10 months, I flew down to Texas to spend a week with you at the first opportunity that presented itself, we’ve kissed and shared a lot of important life info and moments........” 

“oh, we’re dating?? We’re partners? Yeah, obviously! I knew that! For sure!”


And then the question is “but when did we start dating? When did this go from being good friends who flirt a lot to being partners who are... idk, whatever partners are?” And this question has multiple sources/desired answers-
“what’s the difference between partners and not-yet-partners?”
“how long have we thought of each other as people we want to keep around for awhile and form this connection with?”
“when is our anniversary???” (This one is mostly for me, my partners don’t tend to track these things as much as I do)
“How did I miss this as a definition of our relationship for however long?”

I’m just saying, poly has really not made my dating life any less confusing, words are fake (even if I really like them), and damn do I need to work on believing people also like me.

The future is fake

Remembering that time is a thing and the future is a thing is sometimes difficult for me.

Not everything has to happen right now. Some things can be depended upon to last. The people that I love aren't going to disappear. Relationships can move at their own pace.