The Things I've Quit

A quick list to let you know I haven't quit writing. Yet.

I don’t want to do anything lately, but I miss posting pretty pictures in my blog. So, here’s a short post for you.

January finally brought us some snow and a lot of me doing nothing. Here’s our driveway tunnel.

When the possibility of having ADHD was first proposed to me it was met with tears. I was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of what felt like relief. I used to daydream about the day the doctors would find out I had some sort of brain tumor or zombie fungus that was causing me to be just off on everything I touched. What is it that causes me to be such a fuck up in my own mind, and certainly a few other minds?

I recognize that feeling of relief now as gratification, and I get it all over again when I read that first paragraph. My therapist saw me. She’s a good human and thoughtful and sharp, so I don’t believe she was a mind that thought I was a fuck up. She could see how I might feel “just off” of the norm, and having her mention ADHD meant she saw ME.

Since the diagnosis, I have let ME have the floor for quite a bit. I’m able to step back and observe my behavior from a more loving perspective and take it easy on myself where I used to tell myself I was a fuck up. And quitting things is maybe my most favorite example of a behavior that constantly revisits me that now seems quite normal. Here’s a quick list of some things I’ve quit, in no particular order:

Never quit snuggles

1. Game Programming - I learned C++ on my own back in 2003 or so and started fiddling around with creating text based games for my own enjoyment. A couple years in I ran into an error I couldn’t quite figure out and scraped the whole thing. I mean, I deleted every line of code I had ever created and never went back to C++

2. Boating/Fishing - in Spring of 2017 I finally joined the ranks of my peers and became a boat operator. We started with a 21 foot fiberglass and ran it around Sitka Sound. We camped and fished off of it plenty. The following year we switched to an aluminum hull even better fitted for the rocky, tree-lined islands of our marine neighborhood and I was smitten. I found hours of peace, friendship, and solitude through that boat. I also found incredible stress and shame attached to it whenever I wasn’t operating it. So I quit.

   

   I still longing look down at our old slip on the way to work in the mornings.

3. Twitch - I still have a profile over there. I was streaming quite a bit for awhile, but the internet sucked for me at the time. I would constantly drop signal. What I really loved the site for most was streaming other people creating art or music while I worked from home. I love the automatic available community if offers, and I may return to it one day.

4. Brewing Beer - I got really good at making beer. They were all super dry, flavorful, popular, and some even won awards. And then I quit. Now I don’t drink anymore, so I won’t be getting back to it.

5. Game Programming Again- I picked up GameMaker some years ago and found a place where it got difficult, so I quit again.

   

   I quit hockey, too, but that’s only because there’s no place to play :(

6. Poker - I made $1800 in 2010 playing online poker tournaments at a buy-in range on $2-$10, making it three years in a row of a chunky return on investment. I didn’t quit this one when the government shut down the major sites. I continued at a home game here in Sitka, and I played for free online because I freaking loved it. But the communities that meant so much to me did quit, so I find it harder to be interested in playing the game. It’s no fun with strangers.

7. Reading - I’ve heard this is everyone since Twitter. Maybe I’ll get back to it one day.

8. People - Since I don’t drink, putting myself in social situations is tougher. and since I tend to forget about people I don’t see regularly until the most inconvenient times, I end up losing touch with them. I’m just learning this stuff about myself too, so I don’t really have adequate structures in place to ensure I don’t accidentally quit humans. For people that move on from my ever-shrinking, only-in-person social circle, it feels like I’ll never see them again.

I’m mostly okay with all of these quits, most of the time. That last one though - ouch. I should probably work on that.

If you’re interested in how I saw myself pre and post diagnosis, I appeared twice on the fantastic podcast And Then Suddenly. Check them out below.