Today is the first day of this whole blogging from A – Z challenge. What this means is that for most days in April (we get off on Sundays) we have to blog about some theme that starts with a specific letter of the alphabet, starting at A on the 1st and ending on Z.
Originally I’d thought about doing an A is for Autism, seeing as how most of my household lives on the spectrum somewhere. Or even A is for Adorable and throwing some pictures of my various household pets and children down for a quick and easy post. A is for Amazing would have been fun – I could have shared my favorite books. Or even A is for Asparagus so I could have waxed rhapsodic over my favorite vegetable of late.
But then today turned into a difficult day. The skies clouded over and emotions seemed to be running high on the part of everyone in the house, myself included. I’d started out determined to Get Stuff Done (please note the caps) and somehow ended the day curled under an afghan, drinking IBC root beer, and reading American Girl Books. Just because I could.
Children bickered. I mentioned the need to collect various math lessons (I homeschool remember) and suddenly everything took a turn for the worse. A screaming match with a child who feels I don’t love her when I make these requests was followed by an autistic meltdown on the part of another child, triggered by the shouts and door slamming of the previous encounter. And so the day collapsed, much like a row of dominoes under the influence of the merest vibration of floor from a careless misstep.
Perhaps that’s a fitting analogy. Today felt overall like a careless misstep that we’ve been recovering from. Eventually I did collect the math pages, the storms blew over, and the world calmed down. But the residual attitudes and dull grumpiness that followed was never fully shaken, and the day never really recovered.
Let’s be honest, I never fully recovered.
Under the best of circumstances I am dealing with depression with the occasional side of panic attacks (A is for Anxiety!) and my own autism doesn’t like when the Schedule Is Interrupted (note those caps again…). I had a plan for the day and it fell apart somewhere around 12:15. And though I could have made some attempt to pick up the schedule later (around 2 or 3 even?) I always have that feeling that I can’t quite do that – jump in and do whatever comes next. Because after all, the work between those hours needs to be made up, right? And there’s no way to compress 3 hours of work into one because well, I’m NOT Doctor Who or someone of similar caliber.
So where did things go wrong? With the derailment (oh there is THAT WORD again) or in my reaction to it later?
Flylady says “You are not behind, jump in where you are.” I’ve been trying to retrain myself to this because let’s face it, the whole, “There’s no point to doing anything now because I’m off track” is nothing more than an excuse and a very visible display of a poor attitude. Or more accurately a POOR ME attitude.
Change begins, as always, from inside.
This means it’s time to pull myself up by my bootstraps. Check that lousy attitude at the door. And yeah, get back to work. Believe it or not I had something scheduled for me to do between 7:00 and 8:00 tonight before calling it a day. (the time from 8:00 until bedtime is reading time, relaxing time, spending time playing games with the kid time…you get the idea.)
Flylady says to jump in where I am.
Yeah. I can do this.
Let’s all have a good night, ok?
Life in Transition 