Adulting

One of the greatest con jobs (or rip offs) of my life is what being an “adult” is. I thought as a kid — and it seemed I was supposed to think — adulting was something you just aged into.

Great idea. Doesn’t work.

What no one told me: adulting is learning the tips, tricks, and techniques that work for you which enable you to behave as an adult: date books, journaling, alarm clocks, timers, email reminders, or ? Whatever it is that gets you to be more efficient, functional, and accomplish the goal.

So, my dad told me, repeatedly, that X show on the radio meant he had to be on the road. But never really in context. Without the show/timer he wouldn’t be on time and needed to be. He assumed I understood that. I didn’t.

I did assume that somehow all of this knowledge was dumped fully formed, into your head at some magic date. How to: dress, be on time, get things finished, set goals, do what is needed to be done every day. For my contemporaries who got this, I assumed it was just part of my being “not good enough”… that Patty Clark’s clothes always looked good and mine didn’t. That Kathy managed to get to class on time every day and I didn’t. The my friend Teresa got straight A’s and I didn’t seem to be able to.

I was inconsistent, disorganized, emotionally distraught most of the time, and ADD because of the stress.

None of the shrinks/anyone else assumed that my disorganization, lack of completion, lousy grooming was tied to the fact that I felt under siege, different, weird, broken, in some unknowable way. They tried. They helped me study for a test and I’d pass it, but then fail the others afterwards. They put me in study hall and my grades went up and plummeted when I got out. No one addressed the basic insecurity, or at least not effectively, and so every attempt made it worse instead of better. Because I’d failed. Again.

They tried one-shots, inconsistent changes. And what I needed was what I didn’t have: consistency. I needed support I could count on. The inconsistent changes made it all much, much worse. They became fodder for the abuse, “proof” I was worthless, flawed, etc, again.

I’m in my 60s now, right? So, I was brainwashed, and like the traumas, I was shown over and over I wasn’t “worth” consistent effort. I couldn’t change. I was flawed.

Now I panic when I’m consistent. Part of that is the PTSD’s panic at being seen too well. Part of it is the brainwashing. Part of it is just habit.

I keep trying to find ways to get around the panic. Find ways around the ADD part that can take me away and out and beyond and when I “come back” — it’s 2 hours later …. What was I doing?

One way is to eliminate the distractors, the excess: the emotional and stuff clutter. I’ve been working on that.

Another is to also ruthlessly eliminate the things/people which repeatedly prove they don’t work or make it worse: my birth family, as an example.

This is the emotional self-care I’ve learned the hard way. It isn’t simply recharging my batteries, but editing out the pieces which make it worse or harder. I don’t like “writing off” people. But the PTSD is stronger than any rational decision I may make. I have to assume my brain IS broken, and go from there.

What makes it worse? Eliminate it.

What makes it better? Emphasize it.

Try to find the threads that link things in either category and use that knowledge to do it again and again — proactively if possible.

I’m working on it.

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One of the goals I had was to finish emptying the storage unit. I did that 3/22! That saves us about $25 a month. What I know about us is pretty simple: DH is better at making money than I am. I’m better at finding ways to SAVE money than he is. It’s a good combination!

Books & Reading: Legacy & Healing

My parents met because of books. Mom was a bookseller, Dad a book collector.

Books saved my life. For decades, I read compulsively first thing in the morning and last thing at night. They were my only constant: no matter how bad or good the day was, the words on the page remained the same.

The abused, wounded little girl I was to the young woman I became, desperately needed a constant. God had been blocked from me, as had any belief system or group of people — as part of that abuse.

Then I met this quiet 6’1 man who decided he was going to take the person he said was, “the most cynical person I’ve ever known,” and be the rock she needed. It worked, but it took years.

During those years, I still read compulsively. I opened the shop, in part to thank the literary world for saving my sanity/life. Then, at 45, I was diagnosed with PTSD, and the therapist, DH and I slowly but steadily unpicked the knot of my abuse and traumas.

My therapist said that when people get PTSD, the first thing which eases the pain becomes the addiction. In my case, I was 3 and it was books and reading.

(Not sure where I got the image, I’ve used it before, sorry!)

More years, more books, more healing. The store closed in 2005. Sometime afterwards, about the time I started knitting (2015), I stopped reading compulsively first and last thing every day.

I’d gotten to where I almost resented books. I had too many, they cluttered up my life and were a continual reminder of how wounded I’d been.

I count people who write, illustrate, publish and edit as some of my dearest friends. There are 6 books with my name on the cover, and two more scheduled to come out late this year or early next.

One of the future books is the memoir and that’s the period, for me, on the end of the abuse/PTSD sentence. If one person, just one, doesn’t commit suicide or tries to find another way — just once — the ten years it took me to write will be worthwhile.

Behind that 10 years are hundreds of hours of therapy, both effective and not. Also behind it are thousands of hours of reading: recharging my batteries, giving me hope, giving me respite, and telling me to try again and again.

Recently, I plucked a copy of Helene Hanff’s Q’s Legacy from a box. I was completely prepared to get rid of it, and will, but I hadn’t read it. I’ve read everything else she wrote, except her text books, and I skimmed those! So I picked it up and started.

In the course of reading about how she became the person associated with the Marks & Co. bookshop and all that happened to her because of that association, I found a new way to adjust for my past. Having books and reading is fine. It’s no longer my refuge, safety and salvation, it’s a pleasant way to spend some time.

I still have way too many books — but somehow, it’s hard to resent it.