Still Alive!!!!

This is just a quick note to say I am still here, I just haven't been doing any writing (well obviously).  I haven't abandoned my blog, I've just been caught up in doing art instead - every day for nearly the last three months.  Don't know what came over me!

Of course, this means that my writing has suffered because, as my best friend just pointed out, I cannot maintain focus on, and do, two things at the same time, much as I hate to admit it.  So I'm now going to have to let go of the idea that I can somehow fit both writing and art into every day, and instead do one or the other, as the inspiration flows between them.

And, in order to maintain this blog, I shall be trying to post both writing and my art in blog posts, instead of sticking to what has (inevitably) become a concretised idea that blogging requires me to always have to write stuff.

(I've just tried adding some of my recent artwork to this post, and there seems to be a problem, which I'm having trouble figuring out.  So I'll leave it for now, and hope that it isn't a permanent state of affairs. *the Voice of Doom, commonly known as Eeyore*).

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS - Conflict With People

I’ve been meaning to write some posts like this for, oh I don’t know, maybe two or three years?  Don’t know where the time (and the inspiration) went…  

I had intended starting with how I deal with my sensitivity to noise (I’d made notes and EVERYTHING for it), but then something happened last week which has shifted my focus, so I’m going with that first instead, in case I lose momentum.

I don’t know what it’s like for you, but I have a real struggle having to stand up for myself, no matter how minor the issue might be.  The anxiety I feel makes me want to curl into a ball and hide.  And last week I was confronted with just such an incident.  

I looked out of my living room window and saw christmas lights hanging from my trellis-fence, fencing which I paid for, so there is no dispute about ownership - it’s mine.  And on going outside and checking, I found that the lights were draped on both sides - which meant that my neighbour had come into my garden to hang them, and had never bothered to come and ask me first.  

My initial reaction was confused and diffused by the voice in my head that tells me that whatever I feel is bound to be ‘wrong’ or over-reactionary due to my being autistically over-sensitive, anxious, and paranoid.  So when I spoke to my friend that evening and told her about the lights, I described how I felt as being “a bit miffed”.  

Imagine my surprise when she said that she’d be steaming angry if it happened to her, and that she wanted to come down here, remove the lights, and return them to my neighbour, along with a few choice words. 

As we spoke, I was able to begin to process what I really felt and thought: and imagine my horror when she then said that I was going to have to go round to my neighbour’s and tell her that what she’d done wasn’t okay, and to ask her to take them down, otherwise she was going to continue to take advantage if I didn’t put a stop to it now.  She only moved in about a month ago, and already she has shown herself to be a bit of a bully - not threatening, but the kind of person who expects to get her own way, and rides roughshod over everyone else in order to do so.

At that point my real reaction kicked in - gut-clenching fear at the idea of having to go and deal with her, and possibly start a conflict.  That’s what I’d felt earlier when I first saw the lights, but part of my instinct for survival is to avoid anything which has the potential to explode into an argument or disagreement by minimising what I feel about it.  Plus I’m just plain slow at processing information, so it took me until the next day to fully realise just how far beyond ‘miffed’ and into ‘piffed’ (with a double ’s’) I really was.   

And then I remembered that I’d got another option to the dreaded talking - writing.  I could write her a note (or, in my case, a letter).  I’d done it before, with another neighbour, and it had helped tremendously, giving me a way of alleviating the feeling of being powerless to do anything because of my anxiety.

This way I could relieve some of the stress and fear about not being in control - not knowing how she would react, but possibly even worse not knowing what my own reaction would be: would I babble incoherently?; become mute with fright and brain-freeze?; or bolshy with impulsive anger?  And, knowing myself, would I forget who was actually in the wrong, feel guilty and end up almost apologetically grovelling for forgiveness, and for her to do me the favour of taking them down, if it wasn’t too much trouble…  All in an attempt to try to control her, and hopefully stop her from being angry with me (which is how I assume she’s going to react, because it’s what I assume about everyone, given that I cannot for the life of me ‘read’ people.  And I am a depressed donkey whose default position is to expect the worst…*big sigh*).  But then I would hate myself.  And then I would blame her, and then I would hate her.  Not a happy place to be. 

So yes, writing.  A way to have some control over my part - what comes out of my ‘mouth’, as it were.  I also use writing for when I have to phone people (eg to report repairs).  I write scripts for myself to help me remember what it is I need to say, otherwise I’m likely to forget the words, or lose focus and babble.  These are as specific or as loose as I need them to be - so sometimes I literally write whole sentences to say, or I’ll just need to make a note of key words or phrases as prompts.

I know this suggestion won’t be useful to everyone (for those of you for whom writing in itself produces stress and anxiety), but I hope it might help someone who might not have thought of it, and who is labouring under the illusion (as I was) that there is only one way, and that I HAD to learn to be able to confront/challenge/tackle/communicate with people verbally, and in person.  As my friend frequently reminds me, “There are many ways up the mountain.”  

Therefore why would I keep persisting in trying to follow the hardest route, which keeps me stumbling about at the bottom making no progress, without the necessary means to overcome the obstacles in my way?  As I’ve remembered just recently, trying to use force will always create resistance.  Better to make use of the tools that God has given me to move into His flow, and find an easier way, one that relieves some of the stress.  Life’s difficult enough as it is for autistics without adding to it by trying to follow a neurotypical route.

So, I wrote my letter, read it to my friend to check that it was okay, and posted it (eventually).  It took me a couple of days to find the courage to go out and stick it through her letter box (under cover of darkness at the crack of dawn, I kid you not!), and of course I had the anxiety of wondering how she would react.  But it achieved what it was meant to - the lights were taken down that day, and I haven’t seen her to know how she reacted to the letter.  I just have to keep reminding myself that she was in the wrong.  

And I thought it might be helpful to add the letter here, in case anyone needed some kind of guidance.  So here it is:

Hi (I’m sorry but I don’t know your name),

I noticed on Friday evening that there are christmas lights on my trellis, and, given that they’ve never been there before, I’m assuming that they are yours (if I’m wrong, and they’re not, apologies, and please ignore this letter).

I am autistic, and I also suffer from social anxiety, and I found it extremely disturbing to see not only that they had been put on there without my permission, but that they are also on my side as well as yours - which I can only assume means that whoever did that for you either came into my garden, or leaned over the trellis into my garden.  

I was in all day on Friday, and I didn’t hear anyone knock on my door to ask me if it was okay for them to do that; but if they did knock, and I didn’t hear them (which is a possibility), the fact that they went ahead anyway, rather than wait until they caught me in, I find equally disturbing, discourteous, and inconsiderate.

I would never dream of doing any such thing to anyone else, especially knowing how anxious and distressed the idea of other people encroaching on my space and privacy makes me feel, and how difficult I find it having to challenge them about it.  I would appreciate it if, in future, you would respect my privacy and my boundaries, and ask before you decide to do anything that might affect me.   

So, having had time to think about it, I would like you to take down the lights: you do have your own trellis in the back, so it isn’t that you don’t have anywhere to put them.  I’ve also decided that I would prefer it if you did not put anything at all up against my trellis, having also had time to think about your question about planting a climber there.  I already have a honeysuckle growing up there.

As I said, I am autistic, so I struggle to communicate clearly with people to make myself understood, and the anxiety makes this worse.  This is why I have written this letter rather than talk to you directly, as I find it easier to express myself in writing - it allows me time to think about what I want to say, which talking to people does not.

Kind regards

Lisa

Love's Labours Lost The Plot

Crikey!  That last post was rather laboured, wasn’t it?  I know my blog name includes the word Rambling in the title, but that felt more like a trek through untamed jungle, with only a butter knife to hack back the overgrowth.  

And, my God, was there a lot of overgrowth.  I know I said that I’d done a lot of editing to get it down to that size (four and a half pages… FOUR AND A HALF A4-SIZE PAGES!!!  I usually manage to stick to two), but obviously not enough: that was minor pruning, rather than the lopping with a machete which was really needed.  And perhaps a blowtorch.

I spoke with my friend about it after she’d read it, and she confirmed that it was as laborious to read as it had been to write.  I like that about her (among other things).  She always tells me the truth, without sugar-coating it; but it never feels like criticism (except when I’m having a really bad day, in which case saying hello to me could be misconstrued as a criticism).

We agreed it was not one of my better pieces, being somewhat lacking in the humour department (though I had intended for it to be funny; the initial idea was humorous, but the long, drawn-out execution kind of squeezed all the fun out of it, so it did end up feeling that way - like an execution).  And the length… 

I was thinking about going back and editing it some more, but she said to leave it: it would be a reminder of what I’d done ‘wrong’, and what not to do next time.

Because, you see, I have actually developed a set of principles or guidelines for writing my blog posts, despite the fact that it may all seem rather random at times.  And they actually fit into an alliterative list, which pleases the little linguist in me immensely.  So, they are:

Keep It Simple - basically stick to one main topic or theme within each post.  This helps me to stay focused, and there’s the possibility that I might get the thing completed within a week of starting it if I can stay on the path, and out of the forest of my distractions…

Keep It Short - I have found, through trial and error, that approximately two A4 pages is enough for me to say what I need to say: any more and I start repeating myself (just with different words, so I don’t notice it).  Plus, the long ones are usually a sign that I’ve shifted into lecture mode, where I’m now trying to teach something or make a point; I’ve grown attached to the sound of my own thoughts; and I feel the weight of their importance and the need to share them.  God, are those boring posts to write, and read…

Keep It Sweet - by this I mean funny, but the only alliteration I could come up with was either Sweetly Funny or Seriously Funny, and it spoilt the poetic metre I’ve got going on…  So, sweet it is.  Being rather a depressed donkey by nature, I didn’t want this to be a place where I got to cement my woes ‘on paper’, as it were, and share the gloom and despondency of life.  This was meant to be a place where I could share the hope, strength, and experience of having initially survived life as an undiagnosed autistic with adhd (now moving into thriving), and the sense of humour which is so intrinsically a part of that shift, and necessary to keep cultivating in order to keep that donkey at bay.  So the minute I feel myself labouring on a post, being driven rather than guided to write, and having lost interest in the topic, then the humour has gone, and it’s time to either reassess, or abandon post.  As my friend would say, “how important is it really, in the scheme of things, if you don’t finish it?”  This helps to put things into perspective, which is also what humour does.

    

And so, before I break one or more of my guidelines, here endeth the deconstruction of my last post.  May it rest in peace.

Seriously Humourless

Hello, I’m back.  Fret-ye-not, I’m still here.  I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, or into a black cloud of internet doom.  Or any kind of doom, actually.  Though I have to admit that part of the reason for my absence of late has been due to one of my tediously frequent world wide web wanderings.  

But that’s not all that I’ve been doing.  No.  I’ve also been getting myself entangled in the words of a post I’ve been labouring over (labouring being the operative word), which I finally worked out was not coming together because:

a) I was being literal in my interpretation of the words of the quote from which I was working;

b) I was thinking too much, and too hard, about the meaning of the words, and what I should write; the resultant dodgy combination equates to ‘me + thinking = catatonic inertia’;

c) I appeared to have misplaced my sense of humour.

This last point in particular is most important, as without it I’m only half a person (not literally, of course.  Think how weird, and confusing, that would be).  

I am extremely serious by nature, but God has seen fit to balance this out by bestowing on me a sense of humour.  It may be dry, irreverent, and impenetrable to a lot of people, but I’ve definitely got one.  I’ve checked with Someone Who Gets It.  It helps to keep me sane - as much as that is a possibility with a mind as loopy, and prone to depressive donkey mode, as mine (think Eeyore, without a balloon to cheer him up).  Can you imagine what I would be like without it?  Dead, probably.

Unfortunately, I sometimes forget that I’ve got one, and then life becomes REALLY hard work…  

And you can see when I’m suffering from a humour-bypass because it manifests itself in my writing.  My blog posts turn into laboured, tedious, repetitive, formal, clod-footed, minutiae-obsessed lectures.  

This particularly happens when I’ve decided that the topic on which I want to write is meant to be serious.  Like recovery, for example.  Hence ending up with the pompously meant-to-be-clever-but-is-actually-pretentious sounding title of ‘Recover Your Self’ for those segments of my blog.  Shoot me now.  (I am going to change the title.)  

It sounds like the name of one of those awful self-help books with which I used to be so enamoured, with titles like Dying Of Embarrassment (yes, that’s a real book - and totally useless for an autistic with anxiety); The Drama Of Being A Child; and all of those endless Co-dependent No More books with their sequels, prequels, and off-shoots - like one of those film franchises that never end, which are so prevalent now. 

And sure, recovery is important, but that’s not the same as serious. Don’t ask me what the difference is, because I’ll give myself an aneurysm trying to work it out.  I just know that it is.  Even reading the two words gives me a different reaction.  ‘Serious’ just sounds really heavy, and doom-laden.  I feel the weight of expectation in that word, and in that ‘Recover Your Self’ title.  And I never work well under those circumstances.  

All creativity flees screaming from my being when confronted with expectations, and seriosity (no, it’s probably not a real word, but who cares?  It’s my blog, and I’m in charge).  I’m beginning to think it has more sense than I do, the dodo who goes boldly (and stupidly, not to mention repetitively) forward to embrace such things as have been proven to be anathemas to my soul.

We have a quote in AA for this (we have a quote in AA for everything): “Recovery is to be enjoyed, not endured.”  (This can, of course, be interchangeable with the word Life, for those not in recovery from something - is there actually anyone out there who isn’t?)  

The point is, it tends to get forgotten.  I certainly forget it.  Oftentimes I’m not even sure what it means…  “Enjoyment?  What’s that when it’s at home, then?”  And off we go on another existential tangent, seriously contemplating the meaning of joy.  An oxymoron waiting to happen if ever I heard one.

And the other reason for my absence from my little corner of the blogiverse is that I have been on a retreat from all things computer-related.  Again.  I have spent the bare minimum of time on here (which has meant one hour, three times a week, for my Skype sessions with my sponsor/best friend).  The rest of the time the computer has been switched off.  

I was intending doing some blog writing - just the ‘old school’ way, with pen and paper, ready to type up on the computer so that I wouldn’t be spending as long staring at the screen - but I haven’t felt much inspiration.  Instead, I’ve done a lot of journal writing, reading, and sleeping.  Yep, I give up the computer and, rather than the promised better sleep (in all of those articles I’ve read about digital ‘detoxing’ - now there’s a word that conjures up seriosity), mine goes to pieces.

Despite the sleep thing, I have felt better.  I’m always amazed at the difference in me when I manage to stay away from the internet, in particular, for any length of time.  It’s like a fog is lifted, one in which I wasn’t even aware of being engulfed, and I start to think clearly.  

It’s phenomenal.  I have my own thoughts and opinions!!  What the hell am I doing reading about the best jobs for your zodiac sign?!  Or the life-cycle of the lesser-spotted, three-legged, antipodean, ridge-backed newt?!!  Or how to cook lentils twenty different ways (I already know how to cook lentils; I don’t need twenty alternatives - having more than one option confuses my brain.  What, in the name of arse, am I doing)?!!!  

But then I forget what happens to me, and I want everyone else’s thoughts as well - except that it seems I have to let go of mine for theirs to replace them, because they can’t cohabit.  A bit like me.  It’s why I live alone.  Put me with someone else and I disappear.  

So, there we go.  Or that’s where I’ve been.  And now I’m here, but I’m going.  If I can manage to bring this to an end.  Which, at this rate, could take a while.

I wish you clarity and peace of mind, and time in your day to retreat from the world (especially the web part of it).  And may you find the humour in everything, to lighten your way.  (Sounding a bit Yoda-ish now.  Definitely time to go before I start sprouting tufty ears.)

Śanti  

Thought Bypass

This is what I need when attempting to navigate my mind...

“All action is born of thought.”  Author unknown

Okay, so I just checked my blog to see when I last posted, and it’s been just over a week, again.  It doesn’t seem that long, but then I have no sense of time, so how would I be able to tell?  This is why I now have a calendar notification set to alert me once a week: so I get the question, “When was the last time I wrote my blog?” popping up every Friday as a reminder.  I need something to prod me, given that my initial, over-enthusiastic posting has rather drastically waned to the more familiar dribble.  Ho hum.

This is not to say that I haven’t actually been writing this last week - or trying to.  I have started five separate pieces (they’re all sitting there, in various states of fruition, at the bottom of my screen - waiting…)  

But, unfortunately (as I mentioned last week), my attention has been divided between them and the Olympics - and when something like that happens then you can almost kiss goodbye to the writing; or, at least, to my being able to stick with one thing, and see it through to completion.  

My brain cannot cope with two things or more at once demanding my focus, and it will always choose the most stimulating, but least taxing - the one that gives instant, easier stimulation and gratification.  Writing does stimulate my brain, once I get going, and give myself over to it; but it requires no distractions, otherwise it just ends up as a sporadic, rambling mess, which needs a whole load of editing (if I even manage to complete it).  

It can also seem like too much effort when directly matched against the immediacy of the internet - one click of a button and I can be zoned out within seconds.  This is why I bang on so much about my problem with the internet - it’s a quick-fix to me, which is not good.  It certainly isn’t any good for my creativity and productivity. 

So, kind of moving on…  

... and this is what I imagine my mind looks like.  Scary.  No wonder I get lost.

… to the quote at the top of the page.  Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with this saying, I also think there should be a companion to it which goes, “All inaction is born of too much thought.”  This would perfectly embody my problem with thinking.  

I think too much.  I can think myself into, then out of, a course of action within seconds.  And then back in, and out, in and out, on and bloody on, ad nauseum…  I tire myself out with my thinking, which is why it’s never a good idea for me to give too much thought to what I’m going to do (or to anything at all, really, ‘cos by the time I’ve finished I’ll be too knackered to do much of anything).  

This is partly why I don’t do plans - ‘cos I think myself into and out of them, changing my mind about them every sixty seconds, redesigning them, changing the parameters, worrying about them, blah blah blah, and basically living in the future with the plan, and missing out on the moment: ’cos I am not one of those people who are able to make a plan, and then get on with what’s in front of them in the day.  

It’s like giving my mind the opportunity to talk my way out of it in advance; much better to catch it unaware by simply living in the day,  trying to bypass the receptacle of noise that is my mind, and tune into my higher Self (God - who exists only in this moment, ‘cos this moment is all moments rolled into one - deep, I know) for direction on what to do now.  

Easier said than done.  But I keep trying.  Plus, it is the essence of yoga (and I am, supposedly, a yogi).  Note to self: this might explain why I’m taking so long to reach ananda (the state of bliss that comes with being one with the Divine).

Interestingly, the time when thinking before acting would come in useful is the time when I don’t do it - or, at least, not conscious, considered thought.  I’m talking about just before I leap onto the internet with gay abandon, which I do with the vague idea that it’ll be alright this time.  And it never is. *heavy sigh*

So, once again, as with everything else in life (it seems), it all comes down to balance: too much thinking, and I turn into a catatonic potato; too little, and I turn into a fried potato (from jumping into the frying pan without looking where I leap).  And I don’t do balance.  I do erratic swings and roundabouts.  I guess I’ll have to get used to being dizzy, then.  You’d think I’d have grown accustomed to it by now, I’ve been doing it so long.

Right, I’m off.  Hey, look at that, though.  I managed to focus, and get this written all in a few hours, on the same day.  And I didn’t give it much thought beforehand: just had the title and a vague idea this morning, and off we went.  Yep, thinking is definitely overrated, in my opinion.  Just wish I could get my mind to agree.

I wish you peace and blissful union in the moment you’re in.

Śanti      

Blog Boggled

My writing corner; and yes, I do use my paper dictionary et al.

I haven’t quite mastered this blogging thing, you know.  Scrap that: I’m really naff at it.  I’m very autistic and adhd-ish about it all - which for me basically means rigid and inconsistent.  This shouldn’t surprise me but, well, it does, ‘cos it’s not how I intended it to be.  Somehow I seem to think I can leave all that behind me when it comes to my writing, and art… and the internet, and life in general… 

I had great plans to post regularly, and multifariously: not only adding articles, but poetry, artwork, photos, and the like.  Similar to the kind of blogs I enjoy looking at (when I sneak on the internet looking for inspiration, but end up drowning in the endless sea of sites).

I think part of the problem is that my reasons for starting it were rather ambiguous.  It was vaguely meant to be a way to share about being a newly-diagnosed autistic.  It was also intended as a way for me to do some kind of Twelve Step work, sharing my experience, strength, and hope with alcoholics (mostly autistic ones, since that is my experience) as I am not able to do so in person - one on one, or in AA meetings - ’cos of my anxiety and difficulty with communicating verbally.  And then it was also meant as an outlet for me to write, because I wasn’t doing any. 

Perhaps I expected it to kind of evolve all by itself, as it likely would have done were I not autistic.  Instead of which, my style and approach have remained static - as I should have expected.  After all, I don’t deal well with change; and I certainly don’t do it spontaneously (do you think this means that I could never spontaneously combust either?).   

Now I come to evaluate it, of course it seems obvious that, having found a manner of writing which suits me (very formal; always with title; single topic; essay-style; as near to two A4 pages as possible; and grammatically correct and edited to within an inch of its life, as if it’s going to be critiqued and marked by someone other than me), I would end up rigidly adhering to that formula. 

So it seems that this is going to require some conscious effort and attempts to change, on my part.  I’m not quite certain how I’m going to do this, to be honest, other than that my default position - which is to try to copy the advice of other people (fellow bloggers, in this case) - has not, and never will, work.  Not only has it not worked, it has failed miserably, and left me feeling miserably inadequate in the process. 

And what, I hear you ask (or maybe not, since I could be writing this into a void), is this golden piece of advice, which seems to work for everybody else but not for me?  Planning.  Yep: my favourite.  Whenever the question of my inconsistency in writing and art comes up, I revert to thinking about THE THING THAT DOES NOT WORK FOR AN INCONSISTENT, PLAN-RESISTANT AUTISTIC WITH ADHD!  Why, oh why, I ask myself, can I not follow a simple bloody plan, for the love of God?

For a start, I’m really poor at making plans (something to do with the executive functioning area of my brain not being wired-up ‘correctly’).  I try to keep them simple, but they end up looking like Spaghetti Junction in written form.  So already I’m handicapped.  Even simple notes written to myself often look like mini-essays.

But this, unfortunately, is one of the main tools people suggest for basically dealing with everything in life, it seems.  And since it appears to be a universally-held truth that a plan is an essential for dealing with your life, then of course it must be right.  Right?  WRONG!!!

And then we come to actually following the bloody thing.  Never was there a woman so desperate to follow a plan (or a crowd of people, or a flock of sheep, or a load of lemmings off a cliff) than I.  

My writing desk - mainly decorative.  And there's some of my art, in situ.

My life has been littered with all the failed attempts to implement one variation or another of what has become like the holy bloody grail to me, from secondary school onwards (when one is introduced to the concept of homework, and the need for some sort of ability to be able to organise and motivate oneself in order to complete it.  You won’t be surprised to learn that I never could do it, and every piece of homework was left until the night before, or the morning of, the day it was expected to be handed in.  This is not helpful when you already suffer from an inordinate amount of stress and anxiety about going to school as it is). 

But I’m nothing if not persistent, and a slow learner.  Hence thirty years later, after leaving school, and I’m still trying to do something it has been proven that I cannot do.  Sheesh.  Enough already!

So I’m not going to make yet another attempt at planning how often I’m going to write, and post, ‘cos I did that and here we are - I’ve barely posted anything this year.  It’s like the minute I set a goal I do the opposite.  And it’s not intentional.  Not at all.  

Which is why I don’t like the term “oppositional defiance” (which is likely what it would be considered to be, especially given my history whereby I can never seem to do what I’m told, whether it’s me or someone else doing the telling): the word ‘defiance’ always sounds like the consciously wilful action of someone who just wants their own way, and thinks they know best.  And it’s not.  

I hate getting into trouble, and do you know how much trouble I get into when I behave like this?  And how much of an impediment it is to me being able to achieve and succeed at things I really want?  Just take a look at how long I’ve been keeping a blog, and how sporadic my work has been, and how frustrated this makes me.  

And how logical is it to suggest that I’m trying to get my own way when I can’t even follow my own instructions, which are about trying to attain what I want?  Of course, it is possible that I have misunderstood what people mean by the term ‘oppositional defiance’ (it has been known to happen… often), but there you go.  Words matter to me.  

As does “a well-placed comma” (which can change the whole meaning of a sentence - as can a badly-placed one: which can be especially important to an autistic already struggling under the weight of literality, and trying to figure out what people mean by what they say.  Having to grapple with incorrect grammar on top of that grates on my already tautly strung nerves).  It appears that not only am I acutely sensitive to things like noise, smell, and other peoples’ emotional energies, but I’m also grammatically sensitive too.  Yay me!  “A well-placed comma…” has now become my catchphrase.

So, a new adventure awaits me.  I blame my friend.  It was she who mentioned (again) the other day the infrequency of my writing, and what it was that she’d expected me to do with my blog when I started it (something about it being a catalogue of my journey through my life with autistm, adhd, and the 12 Steps, etc.  Sounded vaguely familiar…)  She also mentioned having expected me to play with what is the most informal platform for writing, with no rules, and room to experiment.  I was kind of surprised.  Does she not know who I am?  Me?  Experiment?!  PLAY?!!  Pfft!!!!

She also mentioned just now that anyone reading my blog has no sense of continuity, or of who I am, or what’s happening in my life because every post is not only inconsistently posted, but has no link to the last; that what’s important is not the style of the writing (which is what I get hung up on), but the content and flow, if I want to connect and allow other people to feel a connection to me.  Which I do, but which I’m appalling at, both in writing and my life.

So I shall be attempting to do some of what she suggested, along with some of the ideas that I had.  These include writing a post once a week, even if it’s just to say that I have nothing to write about.  Wish me luck, and see you then. 

A closer view of Rabbit keeping an eye on things.