If you’ve been hanging out with me for any length of time, you know I started my rebrand in 2022. I’m not going to go over all of the ins-and-outs that got me derailed, but no matter how hard I try, I haven’t seemed to be able to get myself back on track.
Somehow that feels like a lie, but it’s mostly true.
Is it my memory, or just me?
I can remember song lyrics from music that is older than I am. I can quote movies I’ve never even seen. But I am also the gal that walks from one room to another and can’t remember what I was doing or why I’m suddenly there. Perhaps there is a more clinical name for what I have, but I know I struggle with shiny-thing syndrome. Thank you Doc McStuffins for encouraging me to make up my own diagnosis! I have so many great ideas in my head, and I write them down, but my follow-through needs some work.
I used to think I was just too busy.
That’s a thing, right? Except that when my kids were much younger, I was not only working a full time job, I was also homeschooling and trying to build my own handmade business. I remember some nights I only got 2-3 hours of sleep. I was moody and angry, but I was getting things done! Only I wasn’t really getting things done, at least not well. The house was clean only because the kids and I were rarely home. I seldom cooked meals, we mostly got take out or microwaved some pre-made frozen food. I wasn’t homeschooling the way I wanted, it was rushed in between other chores or jobs, I simply got lucky that my kids were quick to learn.
Most days I feel like I’m barely treading water in a deep ocean.
People tell me that what I’m going through is “normal” for our circumstances. I’ve tried to accept that, but let’s be honest, I’ve never been “normal”. I understand that every person deals with grief in their own way, in their own time, but at some point can we just tell ourselves, “Hey! I want to be done with this and move on already!” Most days I don’t know if I am waiting for someone to come along with a liferaft to save me or if I’m actually swimming but it just feels like I’m not getting anywhere. There’s also this super annoying voice in my head screaming “YOU CAN SAVE YOURSELF!”
I teeter on the edge of the fear of failure and the fear of succeeding.
Did you know that could be a thing? That you can simultaneously fear succeeding equally to fearing failure? Perhaps because even if you succeed at something, the possibility of failure is still creeping around waiting for its moment. Or maybe it’s the fear that if I succeed at something once, people will expect it every time? There is also a crippling fear every time I fill an order that once it is received, someone will finally know I’m a fraud, I’m not as good as I should be.
It’s a lot of questions and fear, searching for a way to get things done while not losing sight of who I am and who I want to be. Today I made a list of the tasks I need to complete, the “got to dos” and the “want to dos”. I’ve already crossed off three things from my list! Granted, one was eating breakfast, the other was writing this blog post. I’m not the person I want to be. Yet. But I am working on becoming her, one fearfully forgetful step at a time.
