My mind is mush. But I’m posting something here just to keep my blogging streak alive. If I press “Publish”, it’ll have been 17 consecutive days in a row since I set out to write and publish here for 30-days for my own DIY Writing Challenge.
I had no plan nor idea of what I was going to say here today. My mind feels like mush, not mushrooms, but just a mish mash of mush. Whatever that means! This means this will just be me typing whatever that comes to mind so I can keep this practice up.
It can be hard to keep a practice up, to be consistent. But I’ve been doing it, bit by bit. Inch by inch. I’m getting old but I am finally beginning to understand. You do things by telling yourself you’ll just do a tiny bit of it. Like SARK says in her writing book I’ve been getting inspired by, she wrote her books just by tricking herself to write 5 seconds to 5 minutes at a time.
To get the dishes sitting unloaded for sometimes days from the dishwasher, I’ve been telling myself, just put away one fork while you wait for the water to heat up for your coffee.
That’s all.
Just one fork. Then it’s just one chopstick. Just one knife. Just one dish. Just one mug. And before you know it? The entire friggin’ dishwasher is unloaded! Then the pile of dishes in the sink begins the game again. While I make my coffee, I tell myself, well, Lily…you put away those dishes. Bra-f*ckin-Vo! Now you can put away just one dirty fork. And if that’s all you do, you did great.
Celebrate!
Then in goes that dirty fork into the now finally empty dishwasher, and before you know it? A soiled knife snuck in next to the fork. Then a moldy cup from my teenaged son’s room. Then my cat’s water dish. And by the time I add a tinge of MCT oil and collagen powder into my coffee, I’ve — lo and behold! — loaded the entire dishwasher and actually pressed ‘Start’!
I do this with laundry, with getting back to texts and emails (actually a ton harder than dishes!), with meditation and working out at the gym (“just go for one minute, Lily; you can do that, right?), with writing and work. The latter two are also especially hard. Especially for someone diagnosed with ADHD. I’m still figuring how to make work feel more like play. Feel more curiosity and ease versus dread and a grind. But I am learning these little tricks. These strange habits add up and become routines. Couple that with self-compassion and grace when my energy is super low and I do nothing, and you have a recipe for “How to Human”, right?
Shoooooot…and there you have it. An actual blog post when I didn’t feel like showing up to blog, when my mind felt like absolute mush. I suppose I could’ve had ChatGPT write it for me, but no AI has my voice, my memories, my vulnerabilities, my experiences, my Lily-ness. At least, not yet. But until then, I’ll just show up. Me. Word by word, letter by letter.
Even if this all just reads like complete utter mush.
