It’s been awhile since I posted an update, so here one is. After several years of reading, participating in online support groups and re-evaluating my personal history, it seems highly probable that I have ADHD. I have adjusted my expectations and strategies accordingly.

That is, I set procrastination to offset impulsivity, sneak up on tasks without letting myself know so as not to awaken overwhelm, and various other tips and tricks, workarounds and reframes, that are helpful. Somewhat. Not as helpful as family support, well-informed friends and/or expert healthcare would probably be, but one works with what one has.

Between Seasonal Affective Disorder (which is not, despite the name, limited to a specific season) and ADHD, it’s still a daily struggle to get things done. This impacts just about everything in my life – income, relationships, health, home.

Plus, all this new self-conception is taking place against a backdrop of highly unsettled times. Denial, and the deepened retrenchment into dysfunctional behaviors that it brings, are everywhere I look. While I uncover answers to “why am I like this?,” answers to the larger question, “why are humans like that?,” are harder to come by.

With zero safety net, and a high risk of developing a hereditary condition I have thus far avoided should I contract even a “mild” case of COVID, I’m still masking and avoiding shared indoor environments. Happily, I live where this is accepted without comment or harassment. But it further limits my already limited life.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily experience these limitations as a restriction. In many ways, I live as most people lived only a century or two ago, rarely leaving a well-known local environment.

Many people still do live that way, and there’s something to be said for it. I haven’t owned a car in decades, as I wait – and wait, and wait – for an EV I can afford. So I was accustomed to a limited range of travel long before getting on a bus became a serious risk to my health. I wish my small range was rural rather than suburban, and there weren’t SO. MANY. NEIGHBORS. SO. CLOSE. But accepting that, as I must, there are still a lot of flowers and beautiful clouds and a surprising amount of wildlife where I live.

When I had a car, it felt like a shell. I passed through environments without touching them, or being touched by them. Some days I miss that of course, when the weather is rude or my heart is bruised. But lacking the shell imposes a sort of involuntary mindfulness. I wish for filters when the yard services descend, with their ear-racking, fumacious motors. But then again, when my neighbors pop out of their morning doors into their morning cars, intent upon not spilling their morning coffee and keeping to their morning schedule, never noticing the wild turkey on the lawn next door or the rare luminescence in the sky above, I’m thankful for my wide open brain.

So, my journey continues, as journeys do, and just when I think I know where I’m going, I find myself somewhere else. But home, age has taught me, is inside of you. So that’s OK.