Today was a day.
Last week I had a doctor’s appointment the same day I left town and I had my monthly ADHD psych appointment today, after which I went to run all the errands I didn’t do this weekend because I was traveling. I hit the dispensary, pharmacy, grocery store, bank, and building office (for a package), all in the space of about an hour.
Arriving home, contemplating the universe in the elevator as one does, I thought about how my good Quaker Starbuck ancestors would have been horrified and envious of the contents of my backpack: weed, Adderall, red wine, cash money, frozen pizza, and salacious novels. It’s a party in a pack, that’s for sure.
(There was a tiny fluffy dog with a teddy-bear groomer’s cut in the dispensary while I was there. Her name was Spike.)
The party in a pack is very exciting I’m sure but I’m just over here in awe of what people can apparently achieve with effectively treated mental disorders. As I sit here with my ineffectively treated ones and struggle to do the most basic daily tasks. I hope I’m this functional by the time I’m your age.
Some of it is definitely the meds, but a lot of it is coping mechanisms that I have spent years building. It’s only fair to tell you I was not this together and wouldn’t have been, even with medication, twenty or even ten years ago.
What you’re seeing is several coping mechanisms, in fact! The reason I could leave the house to start the errands is mainly the Adderall, but the reason that I could hit all those places once I left is that I was “stacking” errands – I took every errand within a mile of each other on my perpetual “errands I need to run” list and whammed them together (there are other errands but I determined those could wait).
In order to get to the pharmacy I was passing the dispensary; the bank is across the street from the pharmacy, the bus I was taking home from the bank had the grocery store on its route (it’s a Target, but sufficient for my needs), and the building office is on the way upstairs to my unit. So I basically just did one big loop, I didn’t have to go out of my way for anything.
EVEN WITH everything being on a route, did I just remember to go all those places? Fuck did I. I had a list in Google Tasks that dictated my afternoon. The list literally read:
- Dr. K 3:30pm (this also had an alarm set for it because there’s nothing more hilarious than missing an appointment with your ADHD specialist)
- Dispensary Online Order
- 22 to Dispensary
- 65 to Walgreens
- REMEMBER THE BANK!!
- 6 to Target?
- (At this point I switched to my running grocery list, then back to the To Do list once I bought groceries)
- (The question mark after Target informs me that it’s optional, if I’m tired I can skip it. I did need lip balm and cashews but it wasn’t an emergency situation, unlike the bank, which was more urgent because the dispensary cleaned me out cashwise.)
- Building Office for Package
In addition, before I left the house, I stood in the foyer with my Tasks list in one hand and my wallet in the other and made sure that I had my driver’s license and cash for the dispensary, my other debit card for the bank, my Target Red Card, and my bus pass.
I still almost forgot the bank and to pick up the package. Only the act of checking my phone after each completed task (so I could mark it off the list) reminded me of the next one. So yeah, like, that looks super functional from afar, but it’s a patchwork and took a long time to develop.
All of which is to say: be kind to yourself. You can only do so much. Don’t measure your bad days by one of my really good ones when I’ve got years of experience and a functional prescription on my side.
in 7 years its going to be the 20s again so we can bring back swing music and the aesthetics of that era but keep modern values who’s with me
you can’t repeat the past
can’t repeat the past? why, of course you can! of course you can.
date of origin: 19th of may, 2013.
this is my post. do you know how it feels to have this be your post? do you understand the guilt i have to live with knowing this is my post? the weight on my soul as the decade popped into prominence with spanish flu … 2 !
do you know how it feels, heritageposts? are any of these heritage posts your own or are you just a curator of human misery? do you know how it feels to live knowing that of anything i’ve ever made, anything i’ve ever said, this has been seen by most people, and this will probably remain the case until i die? for this to be my legacy? can you relate? can you empathize?
but do you want to know the worst part? the absolute worst part of all of this?
we haven’t even brought back art deco into mainstream prominence. sickening
World Heritage Post
March 16th, 2017 marks the 14th year anniversary to Rachel Corrie’s death where she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that ran her over while she was trying to stop it from demolishing a home of a Palestinian family in Gaza.
Rest in Peace Rachel.
19th year anniversary
20th anniversary
Never forgive, Never forget
Don’t forget that the supreme court of israel declared her death was an “accident” on August 28th 2012. And cleared the murderer of all charges.
GNU Rachel Corrie