The other day, like countless other times before, it dawned on me (yet again) that I’ve been a lifelong sufferer of executive dysfunction. It just occurred to me that it cannot possibly be normal to fumble every single attempt at creating a new habit or following through a plan. This blog is a shiny example of a project left withering on the vine. Sometimes I come back to it. Other times I think about how I’d love to come back. Thinking about it hurts, and I think about it a lot.
This painful state of thinking and not doing has basically become the fabric of my life. For every force (the urge to carry out an action), there is an equal and opposite force (a tug in my chest breaking down said action into infinite steps, thus rendering it unattainable). Every day I set out to do something, and every single day I end up postponing that very thing. I can picture myself picking up my tasks like little mounds of pebbles and then putting them down again. It’s just too late now to do anything about them. How about we go to bed and take them on tomorrow with renewed energy. There’s never enough energy now. There’s always the promise of a sharper me with more energy to do things later. Everything can wait. Except that’s a lie and it can’t and the energy we have now is all we’ll ever have and it’s all we can work with.
When I put off things, I can feel my dread melting like butter. It’s a pleasant feeling, perhaps akin to smoking (I’ve never smoked, so I’m just presuming). However, it’s a deceptive feeling, because later on it will harden in my heart and clog it with even more dread. That mound of pebbles you wanted to move around the other day? It’s now grown so much you’ll need a dump truck to deal with it. I’m caught in an avalanche of my own making.
My energy at this point is very low. I’m carrying thoughts with me, things I need to dump into this pile of words, but I get distracted looking up whether something is grammatically correct, getting caught in the current of information overload surrounding the piece of data I needed in the first place.
I used to do things. Lots of things. But I think I only did them when I was very young, before my brain collapsed and I was left this lethargic shell of a member of society. What broke me? Was it Japan? Was it the Internet? I used to falter out of perfectionism, and now it’s just sheer paralysis.
Come on, pull through. Pour it in. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t look away.
Something is wrong with me. It’s so clear now. Again. In a different way. A string of chapters 1 with no chapter 2. Travelogues that never make it past the outbound flight. A feeling of drowsy overwhelm always takes over, and then I put off sitting down in front of my journal, trusting I will remember, repeating what I want to say over and over in my head until the day I finally write it, which will be soon, very soon, imminently—but that day never comes. And then the words I steadfastly held on to fade away. I’ve been entrusting my mind with valuable things that should be consigned on paper on the spot. Tossing stuff in a box for later. Except it’s not a box, it’s a kaleidoscope, and every turn of the tube renders a whole new image. It’s time, doing its thing on memories. Shifting them into new interpretations. Nothing can be saved. Only the power of the written word can capture those snapshots.
I want to make a list of all the things I put off indefinitely, day after day. But that would mean nothing. It would only serve to prove that there’s something wrong with me. I already know that. I want to fix my botched Japanese. I want to write. I want to draw. I want to play my ukulele and sing. I want to work out and be physically fit. None of these are one-off things, much to my brain’s chagrin.
I wonder if the awareness that things work differently for me might bring some solace, and therefore, some self-compassion, and therefore, some new approaches to navigating life.
There is no conclusion to this rant. It ends here because it must.