Sunday, June 13, 2010

You can't be a writer unless you write, and other statements of the obvious sort.

I live in two worlds.

One is the material and physical world in which I exist as the real person behind ADD-Libbing, with all of my quirks and qualities and expertly covered grey hairs.

The other is the life I sometimes (OK, often to always) live in my head. This is the life in which I created a pretty sweet mindset that includes all of the awesome things I'm going to do and try and enjoy.

Now, both of these things are fine. Except for one thing: the ADD mind is like that Fourth of July carnival that comes to your town (or one near yours...or if you're outside of the U.S., a festival for another occasion) filled with sno-cones and ferris wheels and dunk tanks and junky prizes that seemed important at the time that they're won.

There's one difference, though. The carnival in the mind never ends. And so, as I've often thought, we ADDers need to separate the not-so-great-for-us parts of the carnival (like eating six candy apples a day) from the better parts of the carnival (like the scholarship fund's raffle that helps deserving kids go to college).

Lately, I've been guilty of the metaphoric candy apple indulging. After a busy 2009 doing a lot of enjoyable things and having the requisite challenges and such, I've now realized that I've been cruising way too easily through 2010. I've been traveling a bunch for the employer, which has been a good thing, but sometimes the hubbub that goes along with being on work travel masks the fact that I've not been attending to my own goals and interests.

As I mentioned in the subject line for this post, you can't call yourself a runner unless you write. Which, duh, is obvious. But in that little world that I've created in my mind, I'm totally a writer. I'm also totally a dozen other things, too, like a cook and an athlete and such. But microwaving is cooking as much as paying for a gym membership without going makes me an athlete.

I've repeatedly reminded myself in the last couple of months that I needed to blog. Yes, needed. There are a lot of things I've figured out for myself as I've typed them here. Many of these can be read on this blog, but others have not made it onto the blog for public viewing. (Yeah, heavy...I know!)

What brought me here today is that I got a comment on a post from a reader that began with, "I really LOVE your blog!" I blushed a little, admittedly, and thought about how my experience with ADD helps others with ADD, just like other blogs and similar resources helped me when I was first diagnosed. And those things still do help me, too.

But what I often forget is that when I don't blog or don't comment on stuff or don't do the things that I really want to do and instead reach for the remote or click around Facebook or eat convenient frozen meals or say that I'll go to the gym tomorrow or not work on that really great idea for a novel that I have is that I'm missing out on the good stuff. To get back to my carnival analogy for a minute, candy apples are good things in small doses. But they never compose an entire meal, nor should they.

(If you don't value your teeth, then perhaps this analogy makes little sense. But, I'm guessing that teeth are important to you. So, good, we're on the same page.)

Honestly, this post didn't necessarily go where I thought it would when I first started writing it. But, I'm glad that it went where it did. As Newton's first law of motion states, "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it." And if there was anyone's butt that needed a figurative kick impressed on it, it's been mine.

So yes, I'm getting myself back in the game here. It's great to be back. Part of me wants to go back through this and edit it to pieces and navel gaze about what I've written and save it as a draft. But nope, it's going up for all to read, warts and all!

Thanks for reading this, folks. And if you stop by, please comment and say hello. Because knowing that we're all in this together is something that we always want to remember.

7 comments:

Roze13 said...

And now I'm glad I chose to add your blog to my rss reader after all. I had looked at the date on your last post and mused about when you might post again. I figured, well, it's a blog about ADD, surely the writer will come back in their own good time. And here you are, not but a few days after I added you.

But I have enjoyed what you've posted and look forward to anything else you have to say. Good luck with everything.

ADD Libber said...

Hey, thanks Roze13 for your kind words! I like your rationale re: me returning sometime. Writing's a big joy of mine and I want to keep up with it, so knowing that you've enjoyed what I've written is awesome. Thanks again!

Frannie said...

I'm really glad you're back to blogging :)

I completely understand how hard it can be to bring yourself out of the perfect world in your mind and connect with the real world. It's something that plagues me daily, and since I'm a blogger too, i feel like it hinders the progress of my blog. When I get sucked into one of these whirlpools of activity I can see nothing else but that particular activity and nothing else gets done. I doubt most of my followers would understand, since I don't think they have ADD so it seems like I'm neglecting my blog but I'm really not and in fact feel awful when I don't blog as often as I'd like.

Sorry, I got carried away. Anyway, its just really nice to know I'm not alone. :)

Polly said...

I can relate to that! I write a blog that isn't about my ADHD per se, but it comes up in my posts quite often as I write about playing in chess tournaments and the frequent ADD moments that occur.

I just recently joined ADDer World and have started checking out some of the various blogs members write.

18 Channels said...

YES...get back in the game!

Unknown said...

This is the first time that I've actually responded to a blog!.....I've been a lurker for so long on the internet, and now feel inspired to connect to others that share my quirky ADD traits. I totally relate to everything you said about the "carnival brain." There is always a three-ringed circus going on inside me and I have lots of wonderful ideas.....but I've always felt that until I could focus my brain better and come up with the "perfect" clever anecdote or post, then I really had nothing worthwhile to contribute. This has always plagued me in school and in life.... all the ideas floating around....and then the ardous job of figuring out how to "edit" them.
So I love your advice to just GO WITH IT....GET IT DONE!!! As far as posting about ADD is concerned, the zanier, the better. It holds your readers porous attention spans after all! As far as the non-ADD folks, well, it's a glimpse into our world!!

ADD Libber said...

Gianna, I'm incredibly flattered that you've delurked on my blog! The "getting it done" credo is something that I definitely know intellectually, but still need to remember to practice more. Thanks for the shout-out!