I sat down in front of my laptop over an hour ago with the intention of tapping out a blog post. The urge to write has been upon me for a few weeks now but I kept allowing things to get in the way. I can ignore the feeling for so long but it lingers, like a faint itch from an old nettle sting until I finally make the time to sit down and scratch it, as it were.
In the past few weeks I've been drafting a post in my head about still living the lockdown life and about how well suited I feel I'll be to retirement when it comes about thirty years from now. On other days, I've pondered my new found acceptance of my curvier shape and I thought about writing a post explaining how this feels. Whatever the specific topic, I knew I had something I needed to say and put out in to the world.
This morning after dropping the children off at school (they're back two days a week now until the end of the school year), I headed home with the intention of sitting down to play at being a blogger. I had my breakfast, my second cuppa of the day and I was all set to go.
Ninety minutes later... I've made two false starts at a post, made notes on the characters for my novel,
Googled 'creative writing courses' and looked up YouTube videos on 'How to write fiction'. The videos I found where all roughly 15 minutes long and I decided I couldn't be arsed to sit through them. I've also opened a new Word document to start writing the aforementioned debut novel and have looked on Amazon for books on writing.
In short, I have procrastinated like an absolute boss and achieved next to nothing. Wandering in to the kitchen just now for a drink of water, I found my washing machine had finished its cycle. In truth, I didn't remember putting it on until I saw it, patiently waiting to be emptied. I'll need to get that on the line but Alexa says there's a 51% chance of rain so now I find myself in a quandary.
Sigh.
Sometimes my brain is just a bit twatty. It's like it's channel hopping or scrolling mindlessly through Facebook, focusing on nothing. The word I want to use to describe it is 'flitty'. Use it in a sentence, Kati... "Today I need to lower my expectations about what I can achieve because my brain is being a bit flitty" and by that I mean it won't settle on one thing and seems to be endlessly flitting from one thing to the next.
It's amazing really to be able to see how far I've come in the two and a half years since my diagnosis. In an ideal world, I wouldn't get 'flitty brain days' but the next best thing if I can't banish them forever is to be able to acknowledge that I'm having one and accept that I may not be particularly productive today. As I'm still furloughed from work this doesn't really present too much of a problem. If my brain (and to a lesser extent, my body) are telling me that they're not up for much today then I shall respect that as to try and go against it would only lead to stress and misery... No thanks!
I really have become more attuned to what it is I need during this time off that I've been given. I want to say that there's a quiet that's come over me but as I write this I can hear what's either a lawnmower or a hedge trimmer going full throttle just outside my flat. I may not have external peace right in this moment but internally I am more centred and peaceful than I have been in a long time.
Of course when we return to real/ normal life (whatever that may look like post-coronavirus) I won't necessarily be able to give myself the day off to just watch films because my stupid brain won't let me do much else. I'm already thinking of strategies on how I can handle flitty brain days when I am at work. The most obvious is to make a list of the essential tasks I must complete that day and allow all else to fall away. In all honesty, that's not a bad idea for work in general. My approach to my working day can be somewhat scattershot and I know I'd benefit from more structure and focus. On the days when I really can't get my brain to play ball, and Lord knows I will definitely have those days in future, then I'll make sure I have simple tasks like filing and general tidying to keep me occupied and calm.
While I endeavour not to let my mental health problems interfere with work and how I do my job, it's no a secret that I don't always feel tip top in the noggin department. If I need to go and do deep breathing for ten minutes or just need a day on menial stuff so I can feel up to tackling the bigger jobs, then I'll approach my bosses and ask for that. Honesty and transparency at all times, I say. I don't want to play the crazy card too often but some days I genuinely need to.
The other thing I did earlier when I was dancing around writing but not actually getting any done, was fish out a gift I was given for my birthday in 2018. It's a book called '642 things to write about' and it is, as the name suggests, a book filled with prompts to get you thinking and of course, writing. To date, I have not written a single word in it but I intend to change that. Surely I can find the time to complete a few exercises each week? It certainly won't hinder my quest to finally writing my first novel. I do wonder if I'm actually disciplined and indeed talented enough to write a whole book but when I look at the progress I've made personally in the last few years and the highs and lows that I've survived, anything seems possible. Maybe I'll be an author yet!
This is not the blog post that I expected to write this morning but here we are. I've learned that trying to force my writing, my children, my emotions and so on in one particular direction will almost always lead to them going the opposite way. I wanted to write something today and I have. That's an achievement so I'll give myself a cheeky high five once I hit the publish button. For the record, I won't actually high five myself... I mean, I'm weird but I'm not quite that weird.
