Focus, or lack thereof. I am constantly distracted these days and I do not know if it's genuinely ADD or just the times we are in with the pandemic and social media and news and AI that not only seems to be tracking our movements, but sometimes I think it is reading my mind because an ad pops up for something that I have only thought about. Or maybe it just turns out that I am basic and the algorithm is doing it's job and middle-aged women who ride the mental health struggle bus, have an affinity for poetry and cats and have been single for a while, also just happen to like microfiber mops that come with double chamber buckets like some sort of miracle of cleanliness that they will contemplate buying but only use on a quarterly basis when they might have a visitor.
Case in point: I have already gone on side quests to look up coffee makers under 12 inches tall and look up a link for a friends boyfriend but just ended up scrolling facebook and reading posts for ten minutes. This is why I should be writing in a journal at the library with my phone in the car (if it were normal times) but even though I am pro-mask I can only handle about 20-30 minutes with one on before I start to have a mini-anxiety attack or my blood sugar gets low. I might not know the difference.
I fantasize about finding a new shrink who sees my dysfunction before I even bring it up so I don't have to go and seek it out and feel like I am on a drug seeking mission like I am some kind of low-life who just wants to get their Adderall fix. (Cocaine might be easier to get.) I have new insurance and am in a new area and I don't know if they are seeing patients in person and I know ADD testing is a separate thing and has a wait list but you need a referral and I just really don't know where to start. Maybe logging into my new health plan and trying to check the benefits and providers? Teeny tiny baby step one. There is an on-site clinic at the office and it's in town and it's free so I could always just go see the nurse and make friends so she can walk me through how things work up here.
This lesson/essay is supposed to be about what's holding you back. Holding me back from what though? Finding true love? Losing weight? Becoming debt-free? An enjoyable and fulfilling career? Achieving enlightenment? Are these all separate issues or is the fact that they are issues a symptom of a common disorder of fear spurred by childhood traumas or y'know, just simply being a human?
A new year rolls around and suddenly it's time to fix all the things for a few days or weeks and then thinking about doing everything becomes overwhelming and doing nothing becomes easy.
A magic pill like the one in Limitless. Is that asking too much?
Update: Just found a coffee maker I like aesthetically but can't select the color I like. Posted question on Amazon. Also just subscribed to Poets & Writers magazine again, despite having a stack of unread issues from 2020. But if I subscribe then I am a REAL poet/writer, right?
What would happen if you didn't overcome this obstacle? Another 30-40 years of this same ol' same ol' if I'm lucky.
Are obstacles really just fears holding you back? Somewhat. Fear of rejection. Fear of regret. Fear of abandonment. Fear of tasting what I want only to lose it. Fear of hunger. Fear of having to live a life of deprivation in order to achieve what I think I want to achieve. Fear that I will never really be who I think I want to be. Fear that I will never accept who I am regardless of who the media tells me I should want to be.
Wow, well that got deep. But in a course called, "A year of writing to uncover your authentic self" that is kind of to be expected. I was hoping to write this into more of an actual essay like it was school and something I would turn into a teacher who would be surprised to see that there are actual thoughts swimming around my fat head despite the fact that I am mostly quiet in class. So what I am doing is reading/printing the lesson and giving myself a week to muse about it before posting on Sunday. That is what I am doing. No really, I will do it. It's one a week. It can't be that hard. Maybe they will get more polished, maybe they will be more rambly type blog posts. Maybe I will find a coffee shop to sit in with my chromebook or a notebook someday post-apocalypse. I don't know that there is a conclusion for this, just something to keep in mind as I set off on the path.
