Read the previous instalments here –> Part 1, Part 2
Sunday, June 26, 2022
From Part 2
Every time I’m at a crossroads where things aren’t going as planned – whether it is my day or a new habit, or a new project that’s spread over a few weeks, I tell myself to let go this time. Let things go on the way they are, and NEXT TIME I will do better.
NEXT TIME I will keep things organised.
NEXT TIME I will do a better job at meal planning; at planning in general.
NEXT TIME I will be more regular at cooking food at home.
NEXT TIME the house will be clutter-free.
NEXT TIME I will make AND follow a cleaning schedule.
NEXT TIME I will find time to write every day.
“LIES!” I hear a voice inside my head scream every time I finish a thought that starts with ‘next time.’
I know it is my own because this is a storyline that has been played before.
And its most recent rendition was in March 2020.
Part 3
In 35+ years of my life (as of June 2022, when I originally wrote this), I have lived in 13 different houses, 5 of which were my own responsibility to set up and maintain, and these are lines I have fed myself before every move. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
We moved a lot when I was a child up until I was in my late teens and even then I had a list of things I’d do differently in the new place.
I told myself that I’ll make a better impression with people. That I won’t be known as the chatterbox, or the rude girl, or whatever else I believed people thought about me. That I will be nicer to people and will have more friends. That I will do a better job at not picking fights with other kids or bossing them around.
I didn’t follow through on those either. #1
Wait. Didn’t follow through, or couldn’t follow through?
What’s the difference, you ask? Didn’t would mean I chose not to do it when I very well could have. That I couldn’t means that I tried and still couldn’t do it despite my efforts.
Was it maybe because it was a mental checklist – only in my head? That was too much to remember for a brain with poor working memory and countless thoughts and ideas running through at any given point in time. Almost as bad as working with 128 MB RAM on a supercomputer. Maybe if I had it written down somewhere, I’d have been better at following through.
*loud internal laughter*
Another load of bollocks, because, well, I know now with experience that THAT doesn’t make it easier either. In fact, a list somehow has the opposite effect for me. It somehow makes it harder for me, but not before giving the illusion that it’s working for the first few days (or even weeks if I’m lucky). And then it somehow also manages to piss me off.
For one, I’d have to remember where I wrote it down. Then remember to look at it regularly to keep reminding myself because once it’s on paper or in print, that gives it the license to leave my brain thereby freeing up some space on my RAM. After that it is as good as forgotten unless I have easy access to said list.
A way to get around this would be to put it in a place (or places) where it’s automatically in front of me every day so I don’t have to go looking for it. Maybe even make copies and stick them in multiple spots around the house. For example the mirror or the fridge or on a post-it note inside the flap of my Kindle’s cover (I have to try this last one out. I just made it up as I wrote this but it sounds promising. I’ll let you know how that goes.)
Spoiler alert: It’s July 2023 and I haven’t even tried it yet.
It’s all well and good up to this point.
But once I put it out there in a place where I can see it, here’s how things will go down. I wish I were only speculating, but there’s empirical evidence to support how things will go from there.
Day 1 – Day 4 (maybe): I see it. I follow it for a couple of days (4 days MAX!) I feel good.
Day 5: Will lost. Or, now that I have kids, something happens that derails my whole routine, though it’s more likely to happen on Day 0 itself and following the list sucks on Day 1 itself.
So I cut myself some slack just for that day and promise to take the day off just that day and return to following through from the next day, that is, Day 6 (or Day 2) onwards. Mind you, the promise is 1000% sincere. I have nothing but good intentions and the willingness to follow through in my heart.
Days 6-10: They are no better than Day 5 and I tell myself every day that I’ll do it the next day. Somewhere around Day 8 onwards some guilt starts to creep in.
Days 11-14: I know it’s not going to happen and I have made my peace with it all while I tell myself that I will get to it the day things get better, but at this point, the guilt is consuming me because I have been slacking for days which makes it hard for me to do ANYTHING else! Hello, ADHD Paralysis! The couch and I are best friends now.
ADHD paralysis happens when a person with ADHD is overwhelmed by their environment or the amount of information given. As a result, they freeze and aren’t able to think or function effectively. This makes it challenging for the individual to focus and complete their tasks—including urgent ones.
Source: https://add.org/adhd-paralysis/
Days 15-18: Now I’m angry AT THE NOTE because it’s one giant reminder of everything that’s wrong with me and I start to resent myself and the negative self-talk begins. See #1 above for a classic example of that.
As a result, I either:
a) Pull the note out and tear it/ hide it somewhere where I don’t have to see it and therefore not think about it thus defeating the entire purpose of all of this, or
b) It has been so long since I’ve been looking at, walking past it and not doing something about it that it has now blended into the background and I see it as a part of the decor or fixture, thus defeating the entire purpose of all of this.
Then, must I even bother?
As I type this in June-July 2022, there are boxes in the store room still lying unopened. They were packed from our old house (last rental in Mumbai) in May 2018 for our move to the current house – our first home as homeowners (Marital House #4, House #12 for me overall). I have no memory of what could be in them exactly except for the fact that it has many of my craft supplies and some of Laddoo’s toys. That’s it.
In these 4 years, we temporarily moved into another house in the same building (House #13) for around 3 months or so while this one (House #12) got renovated. We discarded a lot of old stuff that we didn’t need and a major decluttering happened at that stage itself.
When we moved downstairs, we only took the stuff we intended to keep once we came back upstairs. So far so good.
I had vowed to myself that once the renovated house was ready, before we brought our stuff back I would go through each box in the store room and find a place for everything that’s been in storage since 2018 – whether it belonged in a shiny new IKEA organiser in my room, or in a trash bag. One way or another, the stuff would be out of those boxes and neatly organised in our newly decorated home, which, by the way, was also going to be the focal point of my content throughout 2020, maybe even 2021 whether it was the background of my pictures or the content itself.
I was going to talk about the whole interior design process and our experience with it. Delving into the decor niche was something I had in mind because while the interiors of the house were done, there was going to be a lot of decorating to do with wall art, decor pieces, bedding, cushions, and whatnot. I was going to write/blog about ALL OF IT.
We moved back upstairs on the 10th of March 2020, almost two weeks before the country went into lockdown.
The electrician from Urban Company who came to install the chandelier in our living room (which, by the way, is called the “Lounge” in the UK, and is a separate room in the house with a DOOR!) was already wearing a mask and carrying sanitiser even though no specific mandates had been issued by the government until then.
Back then, my oldest (and only child at that point) was in Nursery and had a good 3 more weeks of school to go before the start of summer break. After we moved back upstairs, she went to school just one day before we decided it probably wasn’t safe to send her anymore. It was just as well because the school shut down too and we didn’t have to make her ‘miss’ school.
With that though, went the three weeks of 4-hour windows I would have had to set up the house, use my brand new custom-made work desk to work on the novel that was itching to come out of me since December 2019 which I had already started working on and laid a lot of groundwork for.
Instead of having guaranteed ‘me time’ for three more weeks, I lost even the tiniest semblance of free time, privacy, or personal space for the next year or so. What I did get was more housework added to my plate because we asked the hired help to stay home in the interest of our safety as well as hers.
To be continued…
Part 4 – the final instalment – coming next Sunday.
I get that the lockdown affected EVERYONE, but this story is about how it affected me and added on to what was already going on with me, and how it shaped the next 2-3 years of my life. Interestingly, it did not affect my husband the same way that it did me but that’s a story for a different time.
I have wondered many times if things would have been different if COVID didn’t happen. Would I have followed through on my plans for my house, my content on social media, or my book? I can only speculate at this point.
Mrs. Writes-a-Latte 