Fear

Fear is a powerful emotion. It has the ability to flood you with adrenaline to flee danger with super human speed, or freeze you completely in your tracks unable to make a sound. When most people think of fear, or more pointedly what they fear, they tend to think of things that invoke an immediate physical flight response: snakes, spiders, heights, flying, public speaking, the dentist (which is one of mine), etc. Rarely do we talk about those deep and intangible fears, those things that lie hidden in the deepest parts of our psyches: fear of failure, fear of being a bad parent, fear of intimacy, etc. While those fears may not adrenalize or conversely paralyze us the way speaking in front of a crowd does, or a spider on the wall might, they still affect us. It is those fears I've been contemplating.

Even as I sit and write this, I already feel uneasy about the idea (fear of vulnerability). I've already opened with pedantry- one of my own personal defense mechanisms. I know this about myself. Some people's fears are so deep-seated they are unaware that many issues they have in relationships are rooted in these kinds of fears. I am not one of those people. I've done the digging into the dark and dusty corners of my mind and have come to identify my fears. The problem is learning to overcome them. Saying that it's difficult is an understatement, especially when I've developed the ability to emotionally detach and discuss these concepts as though I'm talking about someone else. Even as I wrote that previous sentence, I had to go back and edit it to replace "you've" and "you're" with "I've" and "I'm." If I'm unable to detach but pressed to express myself, or if I'm unable to find the right words to express an emotion- even a positive one- I clam up tight. The funny thing is, it's not that I don't want to express myself; I often do. One of the only things I've ever wanted my whole life is to have someone understand on those deeper levels.

That, however, rarely happens and with serious and/or intimate situations it is a deep-seated fear. When I clam up it's not for lack of wanting to talk; rather, I am actually paralyzed by that fear. I can't talk. My visual-thinking brain seems to lose the ability to find meanings to words, and all words suddenly become shallow and insufficient. I will start to speak, stop, think, literally become tight-lipped and clam up, and just shake my head. I can't do it. The whirlwind in my mind at that moment is dizzying (hence the head-shaking); it is a rush of emotions along with a super-rapid calculation of how I think it will play out if I speak. Within seconds I generally come to the conclusion that there is no point to the conversation and I just shut down.

While this is the extreme and this scenario hasn't happened in a long time, I've noticed recently that it happens every day on a much smaller scale. There are so many things I want to express to people, but I can't. People who don't know me well- which is most people who know me- don't realize that I do indeed feel things very deeply. My stoicism is an external defense mechanism. Shit does bother me, and some of it bothers me a lot more than I let on sometimes. Likewise, I can have deep and warm feelings for someone yet come across as cool and aloof. Aside from the dentist, I don't really fear any of the examples I gave previously. Over the past couple of years I've even lost what little fear of death I had. In many ways I am fearless compared to some people. But in other ways, I am more fearful. A fear of snakes and spiders might paralyze you for a few minutes, but those deeper fears can paralyze you for a lifetime. It's a frightening thought.

Thin Ice

I had an interesting IM conversation recently with a friend who knows me really, really well, and I got called on the carpet, big time. "How is it you can stalk wild animals with a camera, get 25 feet from a black bear to take his pic with no fear at all, yet you place so little trust in people?" This wasn't a question I was expecting. I thought quickly on my feet, or so I thought. "Because the laws of the animal kingdom are clear and known. Wild animals are not as unpredictable as you think. If you observe them carefully you can sense them on a primal level. I've had no reason to fear them. I know exactly how to behave and what to expect from them. People do not operate by the same laws," I replied, in my standard, pseudo-scholarly detached way.

"Yes, but at some point you need to let that go and realize people are not all the same. Sure some are dicks, but some are worthwhile. Some do genuinely care about you. I don't want you to miss a golden opportunity and a shot at real happiness because you're too afraid." I have to admit, that comment rattled my cage. My first instinct was to deny it, but about a nanosecond later I realized there was no point to it. It was true. "Fear is healthy sometimes," I finally wrote in reply. "It protects me. It's gotten me this far." His reply hit me between the eyes. "It's kept you alive, but it prevents you from living." Damn. Right again. And beyond ironic, since I've pretty much lost any fear of death I had. I believe it's true what they say; there are fates worse than death. Even worse, my friend knows this; he knows every dark corner my mind has been in. He knows me better than anyone on the planet.

There was no escaping. "What are you so afraid of? There's a risk of being hurt in everything, but there's also a risk of being happy. Isn't it worth it?" I had to answer honestly. "I don't know. I really don't. I told the Universe I would give up happiness if it meant giving up despair. I begged it for apathy. I was almost there. Then the Universe threw me yet another curve ball. A big one. And I don't know where I stand or what to do." Being well aware of my convos with the Universe, the reply was simple, yet deep; "Why don't you just go with the flow?" Dammit. He had me. "I'm trying, but I'm afraid." Checkmate.

Of course I know this conversation was not meant to hurt me; rather it was to force me to think. It was to force me to look in the mirror at things I don't want to see. I always thought I was such an open person. Nothing could be farther from the truth, it turns out. People only see what I allow them to see. I'm extremely guarded, but I've become a master at not appearing to be to the casual observer. Speak much, say little. That's me. If I do open up to someone it's carefully orchestrated. For a visual thinker it's hard to explain but it feels like treading on thin ice and walking toward someone standing on solid ground; I don't know which path to whom is really safe. I don't know who might be deceptively leading me toward impending doom. I was getting content just standing in my safe spot. But then along came the temptation of a warm fire on solid ground, and the unexpected desire to run to its warmth. Dangerous. Two steps forward; one, maybe two steps back.

When it comes to people I've always trusted my gut and it's never steered me wrong. What I've realized through my aforementioned conversation, however, is that my intuition protects me and keeps me away from bad people but that's it. I know who to avoid almost immediately. Yet, I don't trust it when it comes to leading me toward the good. I don't trust the "good vibrations," because what goes up must come down, and when it comes down it comes down hard. I'd rather not be lifted up high only to be dropped from that height. Repeatedly. It's not heights I fear; it's the fall. Last time I fell I asked the Universe not to pick me up if I'm only going to be dropped again. Just leave me lying on the ground. I'll pick myself up.

I know I can give off a stoic appearance. I know that I appear to be a pillar of strength to many; I keep things hidden to protect them, and to protect myself. But that doesn't mean I don't feel things very deeply. I do. Perhaps too much so. I am much more sensitive than I let on and more than anyone realizes. And there is one universal truth; people are always the source of my pain. The problem is, they can also be the source of my pleasure but for how long? A week? A month? Eternity? How do I trust the unknown? And the bigger question is, should I? It's cold standing on the ice but it's much colder below it, and the fire is so inviting....

Antisocial Networking

So I deactivated my Facebook account tonight. I've been threatening to do it for a while, and said I would do it before Facebook rolled out the "Timeline," (or as I call it, Stalker's Paradise). For a company that is allegedly obsessed with security, the recent changes made me feel less secure than ever. Moreover, social networking- specifically Facebook- has taken the six degrees of separation to about two. While this is great when connecting with old friends, it can get very uncomfortable sometimes when it crosses over into "real life." So, after a few experiences that took me out of my comfort zone or downright threw red flags up in my mind, I thought it best to lie low for a while. I'm still on Google+ and recently joined Twitter, and those who matter to me knew I was deactivating ahead of time and/or know how to get in touch with me.

Giving up Facebook has been weird for me because I am physically far away from most of my friends and the people who matter to me. Being in touch through Facebook had a way of making me feel less isolated, less alone. What I've come to realize, however, is that while I was in touch with people who matter, I was also caught up in the periphery and drama of people who don't, or have proven they shouldn't. The lines of who matters to me were clear, but the lines of who I matter to were not. I have contemplated the role I have played in the lives of many people I've interacted with over the years, and several months ago the pattern became crystal clear to me. For well over a decade my understanding of human behavior and compassion for people has grown. I have lent my ear and shoulder to almost anyone who needed it. I have been called the most loyal person they know by more than a few people.

But, over the past two years I've learned the hard way- and even been told directly- that I'm loyal to a fault and I've given my loyalty to undeserving people. I've learned- and been told directly- that I've been compassionate toward others to my own detriment. I've learned that sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. Regardless, I was (am) uncomfortable with the idea that I need to focus on myself. I've struggled with these notions on a very deep spiritual/philosophical level, but ultimately I knew it to be the truth, no matter how subjective the truth really is. So, over the past several months I've been slowly separating the wheat from the chaff where my social circle is concerned, and I need to step away from the distraction of Facebook to do that. It takes a while for me to recognize when a friendship is totally one-sided, but now when I do notice a complete lack of reciprocity, I'm out. I'm done with emotional vampires; they have drained my patience dry. I'm over false bravado, ulterior motives and macho-bullshit attitudes. I need people to be down to Earth and real with me, or be gone. I want my relationships with others to mean something, and I'm still working on expressing to other people what they really mean to me. Life is just too short for superficial bullshit. And I hope if I matter to them, they will let me know.

Peace. :)

Schoharie, After The Flood: 9/2/2011

I'm still trying to process the events of the past week. By midweek my faith in humanity had hit an all-time low. I felt lost in a sea of apathy, both public and personal. I know I'm different, but I couldn't believe I could be the only one feeling basic human compassion for people who were suffering such devastation. I had been sounding an alarm for what was going on in the Schoharie Valley and elsewhere, and it seemed like all fell on deaf ears. Post after post on Facebook didn't garner as much as a "I feel bad for them," or anything. I felt oddly out of place, like I didn't belong anywhere, like I could drop off the planet and not only would very few people notice, it would take a long time before anyone even bothered to look.

But then I thought of Gandhi; "Be the change you want to see in the world." There were people with bigger problems than mine, and maybe I could really do something to help them. So Thursday night I drove down to Poughkeepsie for Red Cross Disaster Relief training. Seeing all the people there definitely lifted my spirits, but I knew I couldn't do much with the Red Cross until my background check was completed, so I decided to drive out to Schoharie the next day and just see what I could do.

I was not really prepared for what I saw. It's one thing to see it on TV or YouTube, but it's quite another to see it in person. The normally quaint and quiet valley town looked like a bombed out war zone, covered in mud, and it reeked like old, moldy coffee. Dust was everywhere, thick in the air. Heaping piles of collected debris lined the streets. Piles and piles of furniture, television, appliances, clothing, memories, all at the curb in a heap, like the story of a life had been put out with the trash. My heart broke immediately. I could not believe what I was seeing.

I didn't want to drive aimlessly so I pulled over to check the Schoharie Valley Flood Victims page on Facebook for some direction and I got one- Grand Street. I decided to drive to the donation drop center in Middleburgh to get supplies to hand out first. On the way to Middleburgh I drove past several miles of totally destroyed crops, acres and acres of corn either flattened or ruined. It was devastating to see, especially this close to harvest. Imagine getting the bulk of your salary once a year, and after you worked so hard for it all year, all of your hard work was just completely destroyed in less than 24 hours, and your paycheck with it.







When I got into Middleburgh, which looked about the same as Schoharie, I met up with a National Guardsman who greeted me in the Middleburgh Elementary School donation drop site. He could not have been more than 22 years old, and should be a poster boy for his generation. So polite and professional, he helped me load up with some FEMA kits, Salvation Army cleaning kits and food. Loaded up now, I headed back toward Schoharie, determined to find Grand Street. When I got there it was anything but Grand; my jaw just dropped. Because it's a neighborhood off the main road it's a more condensed space and the destruction was so much more apparent. Activity was everywhere. I pulled to the side of the road, got out, and just started asking people what they needed. I know the culture out there- it's like most of upstate NY- they take care of their own and no matter what they desperately need they are uncomfortable with hand-outs and will say they are fine. It took some finesse- especially with the older people- but I unloaded everything.

As I went up the street I met an older guy named Jim; he needed some big strong guys to get a huge freezer out of basement. I said I'd see what I could do. I went a block up to Main Street where everyone seemed already engaged. There was a pack of male teenagers bounding around full of energy, kept on a long leash by a parent. It turns out they were the local high school football team, and doing anything and everything they were asked to do, quite enthusiastically and very seriously. I recruited them for Jim's freezer; they went bounding off down to Grand Street. Last I heard they made short work of Jim's freezer.

I returned to the address I had originally come there to help, where I met volunteer Andrea and her daughter, helping Bill and his daughter Emma cleaning out the house where Emma and her mom live. The whole first floor was just destroyed; there had been 5 feet of water in the first floor; in the middle of the street the water would have been several feet over my head, and the house is 1/2 mile from the creek. As I helped them what was going on around me slowly became apparent to me. Andrea and her daughter were strangers to Bill and Emma, and had ended up there the same way I did (via Facebook). Despite the destruction, Bill, Emma, their neighbors, Jim and his daughters down the street, all of the residents were incredibly friendly and surprisingly upbeat. Bill's neighbors- an elderly couple- refused all help and just sat in the sun on their front lawn relaxing.

There was a non-stop flow of very slow traffic, yet very few were residents. Most were people driving around with various supplies: one truck with bottled water, shovels, cleaning supplies, others with food, sandwiches, etc. Non-stop. You would not have dehydrated on Grand Street if you tried because the roving angels would not let you. Once we managed to get Bill's couch out we took a break out front and the owner of the Apple Barrel restaurant in town pulled into the driveway with his roughly 13 year-old son in a minivan and delivered burgers and lasagne. It turns out he's a friend of Bill's, but he and his son were feeding all of Schoharie- residents, volunteers, workers, everyone. As far as I know they still are. A little while later a woman pulled in with a boy of maybe 7, opened the back of her SUV and poured us iced tea while her son offered homemade chocolate cake. In between them and the roving supply volunteers were various bands of kids in small groups and of all ages pulling wagons and such with coolers, offering bottled water, lemonade, sandwiches, etc. Random people drove by offering help and asking if we knew of anyone who needed help.

I started to realize most of these people were like me; they weren't from Schoharie. They were from everywhere, and just could not sit home and watch what was happening on TV and the Internet. They needed to do something. I know I didn't make much of a dent in what needs to be done that day, but I felt at home doing it, like I was working with long-lost friends. It was an overwhelming and amazing feeling of community. I felt like I belonged somewhere, and I'm not alone, and maybe I'm not so different after all.

Outside the Fish Bowl: Life With An ADHD Parent

When my mother was three years old my grandmother took her to the doctor; "This kid is so hyper she's driving me crazy." The doctor's reply was to keep her busy and give her a lot to do. My mother started ballet and tap dance lessons shortly thereafter. This happened around 1951 or 1952; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) wasn't formally discovered until around 1989. For many who suffered from this affliction prior to that time, help came too late. There are plenty of great articles about ADHD and my intention here is not to reiterate those volumes. Rather, I want to paint a picture of what it's like outside the ADHD fishbowl.

Much of what is discussed in the media revolves around children with ADHD, advice for parents with ADHD children, and how to cope with their energy levels, inability to focus, etc. There are support groups, special classes for parents and children, and all kinds of recent information instantly available via the magic of Google. Many parents with ADHD children know all too well the daily battles over homework, playtime, bedtime, setting boundaries and the like. What seems less know is what it's like to be the child of an ADHD parent, especially a child born in 1970 to a mother who had no name for her affliction until 1989 at the earliest. It was only in the past two years that my mother has come to understand she has ADHD. Unfortunately, in many ways the damage is done; ADHD "rarely travels alone" and unringing that bell is almost impossible. She is a hoarder and always has been, and I would bet my bank account she would easily be diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD). If you read the list of symptoms in the link, she has all of them.

I don't know what it's like to have a "normal" mother-daughter relationship because I've never had one. My mother has always been a walking contradition- do as I say, not as I do type- with the inability to see her own behavior in the context of larger society. What is deemed appropriate behavior is an unknown concept to her to a large degree, and was worse during my younger years (she has tempered somewhat with age, but it's all relative). She has flat-out publicly horrified me (and her parents, and my dad, and even my biological father back in the day) on more occasions than I can count. She spent many years self-medicating the ADHD without realizing that was what she was doing. ADHD is a dopamine receptor problem, unlike bi-polar disorder which is a serotonin receptor problem; therefore, it requires substances that stimulate dopamine. While there are legal medications to do that today cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and other types of stimulants all do the job, and do it almost instantly (unlike many prescription meds). Since dopamine appears to be linked to the reward/response parts of the brain, with many ADHD sufferers preferring instant gratification over delayed (even larger) rewards, and with no other medication available until recently, you can do the math. Fortunately those years are long behind her, but her unwillingness to really deal with those dark years openly and honestly have created a rift between us that will likely never heal. She is oblivious to this even though I have never hidden my feeling about it.

For most parents, their children are the center of their universe. For the child of an ADHD parent this is not so, even when you're an only child. You can't be the center of gravity because there seems to be an inability to see beyond the self- to empathize. There are glimmers of it, but whatever the case is, it's always pulled back and seen exclusively through their own lens. I was talking to my dad about a month ago and told him that it had recently occurred to me that aside from one trip for a week down the shore when I was five- the first time I really met who would become my brothers and sister- we have never been on a family vacation. I went away with my grandparents, and my parents took vacations as a couple so my mother could "get away." Get away from what? I was a very quiet child. I wasn't allowed to make noise because any little noise drives her crazy. She put the fear of god in me at a young age so I never disobeyed curfews, never sneaked out, always got very good grades (I was grounded a whole marking period if I got below a B), and spent most of my time after school in the care of neighbors. Aside from her dragging me shopping for literally hours on end when I didn't want to go, I recall very little "quality time" with her. The sad thing is that if she read this it would hurt her to the core (not my intention) and she would instantly become defensive and defiant, however, she would be hard-pressed to come up with specific examples of time spent aside from what I just described. Painful or not (and it is painful to me), it's the truth.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation earlier this week (and it's identical to many, many before that). She calls and tells me she just wanted to hear my voice. She calls me little names like "baby girl" in this weird little voice that quite frankly make me cringe, but I say nothing. She says how special and important I am and what not, and in the next breath she talks all about herself, what she's doing, how work sucks, how everyone at work has an attitude problem and doesn't like her for no reason, how they all play favorites there, and on and on. On my end of the conversation is about ten minutes of total silence. If I try to jump in and talk about something, she cuts me off mid-sentence and generally uses the beginning of my sentence to segue into yet another story about herself. Very often this is a total non-sequitur that begins with 'that's just like my situation,' except what I was trying to say is nothing at all like whatever situation she brings up. I have learned the very hard way to never discuss anything with her that I deem important. I don't need a sympathetic listener too often, but when I do it's never her. Whenever she asks me how I am- regardless of how I actually feel- I always say I'm fine, even when very often I have been far from it. Our relationship has been a role-reversal for decades.

I have no doubt that my mother loves me. To her I am her best friend, her baby girl, her pumpkin, the one she brags about and tells everyone my life story (which is another reason I don't tell her anything important- she has no filter), even though she hardly knows me. My casual acquaintances on Facebook know more about me than my own mother, and it's not for lack of trying. There's just no way to make someone interested in you, and when that person has difficulty focusing on anything outside of what is in front of them at that moment, it's impossible. Deep down she is a good person with a kind heart, but she requires a level of patience that sometimes I just do not possess. The hardest thing is knowing what is a result of the ADHD- things she truly cannot help- and what runs deeper, like the HPD. I have spent countless hours lamenting the idea that this is not how it "supposed to be." I have struggled for decades with trying to exercise patience at the expense of my own feelings. Where is the line in the sand?

Unraveling the Mystery of Self

I've been on an inward journey for quite some time now. I suppose this is normal for anyone who undergoes a serious psychological/emotional trauma. It's probably not normal to take it to the levels I have but that's okay- I've never really been "normal"- and that has been a huge part of my journey. Over the past several months I have shifted my paradigm from narrowly looking at myself through the lens of more recent events to looking for patterns of behavior over the span of my life. It's been an interesting journey to say the least, and I have realized things about myself for the first time.

While sitting alone one night several months ago and consciously pondering how much time I have spent completely alone over the past year, I realized that when I was younger- before I was married- I spent a lot of time alone. I continued to ponder, all the way back to childhood, and realized ever since I was a small child I spent the majority of my time either alone or in the company of adults. An epiphany; why am I lamenting my current state of being when I have always been this way? Fascinated, my journey into my own psyche began.

Through the process I have come to understand why I am the way I am. Much of what has shaped my personality is learned behavior, albeit deeply ingrained. Regardless, those components all make sense now. It's nature versus nurture, and what I've figured out is mostly from the nurture end of the spectrum. The nature end of the spectrum has been more difficult to piece together since much of my genetic history is unknown. I know my mother is ADHD with likely co-morbid histrionic personality disorder. Based on the stories of her biological father- whom she never knew- he was possibly ADHD and was definitely a classic narcissist (per the psychological definition- not the pop culture one). Personality-wise, my mother and I are almost polar opposites. While I always thought it was my adoptive father and grandparents who influenced this- and no doubt they were major ports in many storms- it was only after reconnecting with my biological father at the age of 22 that I realized it was mostly genetics. We have many of the same interests, and I get my artistry, intellectual curiosity and philosophical/contemplative side from him. His mother was also an artist. I didn't have the pleasure of really knowing her before her passing late last year.

I factored all of this into my recent equations on my self-exploration but I still came up with a few major variables I could not reconcile. There are certain aspects of my personality that seemed to exist in a vacuum. Aside from being with people I know well, I am generally very quiet around people I don't know. I dislike the limelight and get uncomfortable when attention is centered on me. In a crowd I will fade into the background and study everyone and everything around me. It takes a lot for me to feel comfortable with new people; I am open, friendly and genuinely interested in them, but I reveal little of myself. I hold my faith and beliefs close to me; they are a part of me. I usually don't discuss my spirituality unless specifically asked or in a proper context. And unlike others in my family, I discovered my faith on my own personal philosophical journey- not because that's what others believed and told me to do the same. It was by my own choice.

So where the hell did all that come from? It was the x factor, and I've been struggling to solve for x, until today. I haven't spoken to my biological father in a few months. I knew he was struggling with the loss of his mother and needed some time, but I wasn't going to let Father's Day go by without at least leaving him a message, so I called. He answered, and we talked for a while, mostly about his mother. The more he talked about her, the more puzzle pieces fell into place in my mind. As a visual thinker, my brain was making intangible connections in such rapid-fire succession it was overwhelming. I could feel the connection to her so strongly, the missing piece of the puzzle of my identity finally snapping into place. I just listened and silently cried.

The funny thing is, while I wish I had known her better I don't regret not knowing her, because now I know it's her blood and spirit coursing through me, and I carry her with me. I almost feel complete.

Buried Alive: growing up with a hoarder

My mother calls me to vent. "So Tony [her landlord] called; he said I have two weeks to clean up my apartment or he's not going to renew my lease. I'll have to find another place to live. I told him it's much better than it was and that I work 60 hours a week and I can't afford to take two weeks off to do this and it's not that bad and I'm only one person and I can't be in two places at once and there aren't enough hours in a day and...." Lucky for me, she has Sprint and her phone doesn't work that well in her apartment, so some of the initial volley was mercifully broken up.

Don't get me wrong; I love my mother. I do. But, she has ADHD and several personality traits that tend to go with it, including hoarding. Have you ever seen the shows about hoarders? Where they make up elaborate stories about objects that most people would consider trash? Welcome to my world. She's not as bad as some of the people on the TV shows, and it has ebbed and flowed in degrees over the years, but it's never gone. Not all people with ADHD are or will become hoarders. Conversely, a significant percentage of hoarders tend to have other underlying psychiatric issues like ADHD, Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, Bi-polar disorder, etc. Hoarders without underlying issues usually suffer some kind of trauma that triggers the behavior. She used to say she was like this because when she was a child her mother used to clean out her room and throw all her stuff away. I realized a long time ago that my grandmother cleaned out her stuff because she has always been like this- a fact that I pointed out to her tonight when I finally became exasperated with her.

I know she is trying. She has battled this for years, but with the ADHD undiagnosed and untreated for decades, the hoarding is deeply ingrained. She has no idea why she does it and this frustrates her. My father is the polar opposite- he's extremely clean and neat- and he was the only thing that kept our home in check when I was growing up. Still, growing up with a hoarder was an interesting experience to say the least. I remember being about ten or eleven or so when my father finally had it with the newspapers and cat food labels in the basement. Yes, you read that correctly. We had probably a couple of years of Sunday papers stacked in the basement. Stacks and stacks, six feet high. My mother wouldn't throw them away because she hadn't gone through and cut out all the coupons yet. When she did cut coupons they weren't organized and were rarely used. They became part of a different pile in a different place in the house. I remember thinking, if you're not going to use them, yet not throw them away, why bother cutting them out? At least it's a little neater if you leave them in the ludicrous stacks of papers. The day my father finally said "tough shit" to the coupon clipping excuse was a great day. I helped him load up all those papers and take them to the dump. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted. We cashed them in for about $15 and he took me for ice cream.

Now with the cat food labels, there was apparently some kind of offer where you save umpteen labels from 9-Lives canned cat food, mail them in somewhere and they send you a coupon, or some cat toy, or something. In the basement next to the newspapers was five or six paper grocery bags full of these canned cat food labels. Yes- that's correct- five or six bags, stuffed full. Not one had ever been mailed anywhere. Much to my mother's protest, as my dad and I were loading the papers he asked me what I thought of those bags of labels. I told him it was stupid and made no sense; that we both knew she would never do anything with them. So, out they went. Oh glorious day!

Ironically, from the time I was six or seven I had to clean my room every Saturday before I was allowed to play, watch TV, or do anything fun. In our house in Sayreville my room was at the opposite end of the hall from that of my parents. I distinctly remember one Saturday when I got up, cleaned my room, and was hanging out drawing or something. It was just one of those lazy teenage days where I got consumed by a creative project. In the morning while I was cleaning my room my mother decided to clean hers too. She sat on the bed in her pajamas watching TV, and started with cleaning out the drawer in her nightstand. I barely noticed until about five hours later when I got up and went to the bathroom, happened to look into her room, and there she sat, still cleaning out the same drawer. She was about half way through it.

After my parents sold the house and went their separate ways I shared an apartment with my mother for a year. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. In the year I lived there, my bedroom was the only room that had ever been unpacked and clean. I moved out when I was 20. At one point I had to feed her cat while she was away. She had enough packets of duck and soy sauce and such to start her own Chinese food restaurant. All over the kitchen- ketchup packets, Chinese food condiments and the like- I threw them all away. That stuff has a shelf life and some of it was months if not years old. Stacks of plastic won ton soup containers- I threw all of them away too. And much like the hoarders on TV, stuff was stacked everywhere with trails to walk from room to room. Every apartment thereafter was the same story. She has a storage unit that she's had for about ten years now. Over $150 per month, times ten years. I don't think she's been in that unit in at least five years. For all I know, she no longer has it and doesn't want to tell me.One time I was helping her move and she had an entire box of empty baby food jars. I asked her if it was garbage. She told me no, and then proceeded to explain to me a very elaborate craft project she had planned for them. I tossed them when she wasn't looking; she never knew until I told her last night.

I haven't been in her current apartment in years. The last time I was in there it was for about 30 seconds to help her carry something in and I held my breath the entire time. I haven't set foot in there since, and I won't. I can't. Not only is the smell overwhelming, but my allergies would go apeshit. It's impossible to be a clean hoarder. The most disturbing thing for me about the TV shows about hoarders is that as soon as I see it and people try to describe the smell and say things like "you can't believe how bad it is," I think to myself, oh yes I can.

It's sad to me that I can't go visit my mother, that I can't come to NJ and crash on her couch to visit, and that it's basically impossible to have a semblance of a "normal" relationship. So many people going through the kinds of things I've gone through over the past 18 months often move "home" for a while; I don't have that luxury. My mother was one of the last people to even know what was going with me. Granted, this is not entirely because of the hoarding but because of the ADHD as a whole. The ADHD deserves a future post of its own. Until then, feel free to post and ask questions if you like. The only way to humanize and destigmatize things like this is to talk about it.

Totally Random Simple Things That Make Me Smile

In no particular order....

• butternut squash with real maple syrup and ground sea salt
• black people wearing brightly colored clothing (white people just can't pull it off for the most part)
• weeping willows
• winning over a chipmunk and getting him/her to eat out of my hand
• watching the flight of massive murders of crows return to Albany at dusk to roost
• the outline of naked trees against a dimly lit, colorful sky
• really good Indian food
• being braless in a cashmere sweater
• new Teva flipflops
• the smell of Stargazer lilies and fragrant water lilies
• the sounds of a cat purring
• people with good voices who walk around in public singing like no one else is there
• warm Spring days
• pictures of goats wearing sweaters
• the smell of the Adirondacks
• rainbows
• a brand new and freshly sharpened pencil
• the way my curls feel really soft and bouncy right after a haircut
• dragonflies and damselflies that perch on my pole-- or on me-- when I'm fishing (or kayaking)
• when the moon is visible during the daytime
• the first ice cream cone of the summer (and every one thereafter)
• when my friend at work drops a snack pack of macadamia nuts on my desk to make me smile on rough days
• feeding my fish by hand
• old, weathered barns
• watching spiders weave their webs
• geese flying north in the spring
• the big box of Crayola crayons
• teeny tiny toadlets the size of a fingernail
• people who smile for no obvious reason

Feel free to comment-- I'd love hear some of yours. :)

It's Been a While...

It's been a while since I've attempted to commit my thoughts to words in a coherent fashion, rather than rapidly scratching out a total stream of consciousness. I'm a visual thinker; my brain thinks in images and dimensions, and then attempts to translate those into words. Very often I fail miserably and end up speaking in metaphors that very few people understand. There is a constant feeling of disconnect between thoughts and words; very rarely do I feel like I'm truly conveying what I think, feel or intend to. Nonetheless, I'm going to give it a shot. I haven't written anything for public view in so long that wasn't polluted with facts, figures, archival sources and general pedantry- not that there's anything wrong with that- but my goal here is to break free from that structure.

I ponder things, from the deeply philosophical to the truly random. That's what I do, who I am and who I've always been. I have kept that primarily to myself for a very long time. Those of you who know me well will probably not be at all surprised by what you eventually read here. Those of you who know me somewhat will probably have an, "ah-HA! I had a feeling..." or "I knew it" moment. Those of you who don't know me well or at all will probably just think I'm weird and misunderstand me more often that not, but that's okay- I'm used to it. Just go back to the first paragraph and reread the part about me feeling like I can never accurately convey what I mean. :))