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.

Who do I know?

I talk to a lot of people. I make new friends easily and share pieces of my life. I hang out with people whose lives are complex and existed long before we were friends.

One of my favorite things about this is stories and names. When you are telling a story to someone you don’t know well, there’s a toss up between identifying them in relation to you (my best friend), offering the relationship and the name (my best friend, Whitney) or just offering the name (Whitney said...). And sometimes you have to make a fuller distinction with people you’re sure know about each other (you know, my friend, Danny. He went to Wooster and we met that one time because of music and we started talking again for reasons x y z) until you get the “ohhhh, right, that person.”

I have a tendency to talk about the same people frequently, and I switch off between the names and the relationships, only occasionally offering them at the same time. Basically my method is that I’ll try to make it obvious the first few times, then I’ll just use what’s easiest in the moment and you’ll figure it out.

I love watching how other people approach this as well. The times that they expect me to know who the name belongs to, and the times they think they need to explain, and the times they use the relationship only even when I probably know the name. The times when they’re going to use the name, and it doesn’t really matter if you know the relationship or not.

It’s just interesting to think about the level of familiarity we expect people to have with the cast of characters in our lives. I love putting the puzzle pieces together, and I love feeling like the other person thinks I’m close enough to know who they’re talking about or that I’ll figure it out. I love when they’re right. I love getting people up to speed on my MVP list quickly.

What They Need To Hear

If you only ever use “I’m just telling them what they need to hear” to mean negative or hurtful things, give that some thought. Sometimes what people need to hear, and I mean need not want, is encouragement. Sometimes they need to hear that you believe in them, that you’re proud of them, that they tried their best.

The next time you want to tell someone what they “need” to hear, consider if maybe there isn’t something else they need to hear too.

Reachy

I'm reach-y right now. Hands out, grasping at strings of affection, regretting that the people I want are all far away. I value my room to move and the excuse to run away occasionally, but when I find myself putting a hand out to brush a shoulder that isn't there, it aches a little. I'll be okay, I'll make it through, and if I do it right I won't annoy my people with repetitive mentions of fondness and need. But my heart is reaching, trying to cross a distance that I just can't cover right now. Forgive me if I seem a little distracted, not all of me is here right now.