Yay, Late Presents!

 As an adult, I’ve never been disappointed when someone says I have a late present coming. Of course, the sad truth of my life is that I’ve often been told to expect presents that never ended up coming so the first surprise is always that it actually came at all. But childhood disappointments are adulthood’s practicality and skepticism; some of us will learn how to adapt and not develop expectations while some of us will just keep trusting and being disappointed. I’m not gonna lie; I was late to learning not to take people at their word and to instead wait and weigh their actions. 

Honestly, I didn’t remember my sister saying I had a bigger present coming later. I was really good with the slippers she got me on Christmas. They’re my favorite kind, with the shallow backs, fur lining and the rubber soles so they could handle short trips outside. So when she told me shipping was wonky and my ‘other present’ was late, I was surprised. She must’ve told me that already but I don’t retain information sometimes, especially if it’s dropped casually in a phone message and I’m in the middle of talking about something else.

So it came today and I was stunned. I’d talked about getting one but honestly didn’t know where I’d put it: a Cricut Explore Air 2. All of a sudden, I was super motivated to make it fit. I spent about an hour rearranging my desk and dolls and it actually fit perfectly on the far left side of my desk. I ended up buying a desktop hutch so I can organize it better once that comes, but I’ve never been upset when it comes to organizing. Anything that can give a bit of floating clutter a better home is more peace of mind for me.

In any case, it was a bit of a challenge setting it up too. I have an early 2009 iMac that is still running like a champ but the minimal requirements are for OS 15 and up. My iMac stopped upgrading at 11 (El Capitan) and even my MacBook quit before Mojave (not too much younger; it’s a late 2009). I was still determined to make my computer work so I dug around on Reddit and found that the quick fix was downloading a root certificate to the keychain access (even if you’re technologically inclined, that’s probably toeing the line of head-spin gibberish territory), basically manually downloading a permission file that is automatically upgraded when you upgrade your OS but those of us in the OS graveyard no longer get neatly handed to us. Although the Cricut Design Space warned me I might not have ‘optimal usage’ I gave zero fucks; apart from speed issues, there’s no actual hardware integration that is missing from older computers that they can’t handle a communication between a design program and a cutting machine. But thankfully, I’m both a professional designer and a nerd so I didn’t even blink at the warning. That’s right; I’ll Frankenstein this computer just shy of its Thelma and Louise style departure. We’re in it for all it’ll give me.

So I got past that little hurdle and managed to excitedly churn out a test cutout. Then I actually decided to read the instructions and learned there’s a button clearly marked OPEN so I also don’t have to pry it open with my fingernail every time too. Good to know. Leave it to me to solve a technical issue before I find the damn Open button. I researched cutting blades, mats, media types and I’m super psyched that it can cut fabric for my doll clothes patterns too. It’s been a while since I’ve been psyched to try out some new tech but this one just makes so many arduous tasks I used to do completely by hand that much easier. I’m glad it was gifted instead of something I eventually bought much later and didn’t realize what a timesaver it would be. I really look forward to flexing my design chops by loading up some original designs too.

It’s definitely a cherry on the top of a crazy year. Something to look forward to into a new one. Here’s hoping my muse comes crashing through 2022 and I can blow some minds (including my own—it’s a little known secret that I’m usually even more surprised that other people by what I’ve managed to accomplish. They call it impostor syndrome, but in truth, I just can’t retain or quantify what I do. I never feel the immensity of it and have to constantly remind myself to remember I’m worthy of setting a high value on it. I don’t even have the ego to bolster it either). 

One thing I always attempt to reinforce is that ADHD is not a superpower nor a disability. It’s a challenge and one I struggle to control. It can be a trial to my creativity and make me unreliable. This is often why I do client projects very quickly and well. I do not retain or finish anything I do half-assed. I would love to be able to pace myself and slow down or stop and start at will for continuing projects but  there’s always an anxiety that once I stop, I’ll fizzle out. It has happened enough times that it’s not an unfounded fear. I’m a firecracker or I’m a dud. Although ADHD awareness is starting to help me integrate me into social and work situations better, it can still be difficult when working with older generations and agencies/clients that aren’t quite caught up with the times. It’s not surprising to me that people with ADHD are often attracted to creativity; outside of odd professional expectations, art is still a refuge for a chaotic mind and can be our way to contribute to the inventions, entertainment and mental respites that humanity needs. We can heal our own frustrations while contributing to the betterment of the world.

I’ve done some pretty neat jobs along the way. I did a body sketch to be used in identifying injuries in police reports. I designed a website banner for an organization that improved the quality of education for grade school students in India. I did a logo for a theatre group forum looking to connect actors better to auditions whether they had an agent or not. Every time I’ve done a logo or a brand or a flyer, I do manage to retain a small story behind it. Visuals are powerful containers for my memory, almost as much as smells. Although each of these jobs makes for a much more interesting résumé, the formats still cling to the old chunk of time with x company and referential proof. Despite my social challenges, I feel like my power isn’t even touched in a résumé, that the real appeal is in the portfolio, the collection of images of both clients and passion projects and even curiosities that led to designs with no set purpose but solve a unique problem or fulfill a purpose.

That’s why, even when I’m stuck in a burnout or trickle, I know I’m still a powerful artist, a formidable creator. I get back on my programs or projects and it’s like I never stopped. I don’t lose what I didn’t use and sometimes I’ve managed to improve without practice. Sometimes those breaks lead to breakthroughs in thought or intuition and simply wanting something to happen sends me on a search for how I will make it happen.

So here’s another tribute to the unconventional. We don’t fit in boxes and we have our challenges, but we sure as hell belong. The world doesn’t need to accommodate us, just give us room to do what we do best; make the world a kick ass place.

Once we get out of our own way. Let’s be honest, we blame ourselves plenty for that too.

Another Warp Speed Yet Oddly Suspended Year

 I’m sure if I ever bothered to do New Year’s resolutions, I could churn out some painfully misguided goals to burn out on before January is over, but regardless of how pointless I find those resolutions, I still like to give the year’s end some time for reflection.

It still blows my mind that only four years ago, I published my first book… and followed it with ten more. (I actually finished all nine books before I ever published the first, though.) Somewhere between there, my grandma and mom died and I published the tenth book on my mom’s birthday. I managed to finish UnSung but the final two books of that series are still in limbo. Before I was officially burnt out, the pandemic crept up and completely shattered my sense of time. 

At first, I used FaceBook to navigate but it was destroying my moods and making me avoid both the people I live with and the things I usually enjoy doing. I’ve spent much of the past almost-two years in a sort of haze, sometimes feeling like depression or anxiety but making me confused, restless and unfocused above all. I’ve been able to chip at some projects at a snail's pace but mostly just kept… acquiring things. Which temporarily alleviated anxiety but also caused it too. I’m surrounded by so many wonderful things to do and… still don’t really want to do anything. Oddly enough, it’s not the eyes of my many dolls passing judgement but the many I started projects without eyes that feel like they stare with the weight of judgement.

I bought a PS5 and rarely play it, even though I got a PS Plus subscription as well. I mostly poke at stupid phone games I’m not really paying attention to, with my TV playing shows I’m also not paying attention to, just trying to shut up a brain that is either racing in multiple directions or drooling with useless absurdities. 

I hate when I dream. Most of the time I just wake up remembering something weird but entirely too stupid to make into something interesting. Unless hiding in my grandma’s basement and smoking cigars made out of brown sugar is your idea of inspiration for a story. For me, that’s a hard pass. It’s only weird in that sort of way that Mad Libs are random. Mostly stupid but you try to be a good sport and laugh when you replay it.

I still edit for a friend, one of the bright spots in the year. I love his stories and I love remembering I’m really good at things, even when I’m neither confident nor motivated. I really never had hope that I’d ever get lucky creatively and become a name but just having the passion to be creative is too powerful to mourn that. This isn’t a world that rewards virtues I find necessary to live with myself and I have no desire for the misery of ‘compromise’. People seem to define ‘compromise’ as me giving up everything important and them tolerating my involvement. And the less work they actually do, the more credit they want. 

I’m proud of the changes I’ve made this year though. I’m taking better care of myself, which came in handy when I was put to the test, nearly losing my dad to COVID-19 and having to take care of everyone as if all was normal. Fasting has turned out to be a very helpful discipline, mentally and physically, and I will keep it up as long as it continues to be beneficial. Once I can break through the haze, this room I’ve been stocking and cleaning will be a powerhouse base for amazing projects again. One thing I’ve learned that can always float me through depression is maintaining a clean and tidy space so that when I hit the ground running, I’m not impeded by chaos and likely to fall right back into depression again. Depression can both cause paralysis and encourage inertia. It took a lot of time to discipline myself to the mind-over-matter state of telling myself to just move. Even if it just meant breathing and focusing on tightening muscle groups until I could even lift an arm. (You never ‘get over’ depression; in my case, there was a lot of building up to the will to want to bail out.)

There was always that scene in The Neverending Story that stuck with everyone who saw it. The horse just giving up in the Swamp of Despair and how much we didn’t get it like Atreyu yelling at it to just get moving. Until we did get it, the ones that became depressed when we got older. I think that scene is even more painful to think about now because I understood that loss of will. I remember the horse really looking afraid, confused, crying out towards the end but ultimately succumbing. But I also remember that life went on for Atreyu. It had to. Life is for the living and ultimately, once I’d hurt those I loved by giving up, they’d have to carry on letting my loss burden them in a way that they might have never really understood why I couldn’t just TRY.

So I do. Some days I just go through the motions but I know that ‘just’ doing anything is sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves. To let ourselves cry in bed too, but to get up and prepare for the world we want to be in once the funk passes. To be the only ones to know how brave we have to be to fight those misunderstood battles and overcome.

So I go into the new year without expectations or goals or ultimatums on my healing paths. There is no shortcut to that breakthrough but it will come, sooner or later, and I must celebrate my victories and learn from the defeat. There are great things ahead, good and bad, and I only hope that my journey has more great adventures ahead.

Is It Accountability?

 I realize I overthink things and often to the detriment of the original curiosity, but throughout my attempts to find a lifestyle that is healthiest for me, I’ve had to stop and ask many times: is this really healthy?

I’ve questioned ideas of ‘body positivity’ that are now weaponized as ‘non-diets’ or ‘lifestyle changes’; anything to avoid the ‘negative’ connotations of weight loss. Except programs like Noom are wielding this vocabulary of a ‘psychological’ approach to behavioral change to mask that their measures of success are exactly the same. You still track food and water, you still step on a scale, you still restrict your calories. Pardon my French, but that’s… a fucking diet.

I’m not going to say that all of the programs are insidious and heinous as I’m sure they can be helpful to some, but… they absolutely reek of the possibility of danger for those desperate and prone to eating disorders, body dysmorphia and classic depression. They still ask you how fast you want to lose weight and give you far too few calorie limits if you actually calculate what your body should be getting. After losing 5-10 pounds, you should always recalculate because your unique caloric needs involve more factors than these programs bother to consider.

I tried Noom. Although I skipped out on the group and coach options because I don’t want cheerleaders or clichés spit at me. I was always fucking hungry but good job! In the first three months, I lost 5 pounds then I couldn’t budge. I was exercising daily, well beyond a minimum but I was still always tired and sore and hungry.

I remembered that for past attempts, more working out and more stress on your body means you need to feed your damn body. I noticed that my FitBit did a better job of accounting for how many calories I needed and used so all this red/yellow/green food bullshit that Noom tried to pass as innovative was moot.

With FitBit, another 10 lbs were lost but again, plateau. By that point, I was certain I was facing the hormones of a 40 year old woman so I didn’t stay frustrated, just kept doing what felt healthy and didn’t make me miserable.

I’d tried intermittent fasting years before and hated it— the 16:8 method that always seems to be so popular. I liked the reprieve from counting calories while fasting but it always seemed to create this misery that made it hard to sleep and made me ravenous when it was time to eat. However, I’d done 24 hour and even 3 day fasting in the past with more success and wanted to try again.

At first… well, it was misery. It came with hunger, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness. I didn’t lose weight after either. However, I noticed with these longer fasts that I really loved going a day or three without calorie counting and even if I ate all I wanted, by the end of the week, my calorie intake was consistently in a safe but generous weight loss margin. I started consistently losing one pound or two every week and I was feeling stronger, sleeping better, getting nicer skin and hair, managing my moods better. I was scared at first, because most programs tend to punish you for fasting as if it’s an eating disorder, but it’s actually improving my mental state far more than medications or other methods I’ve tried. It was more powerful than meditation in cleansing myself of racing negative thoughts.

Calorie restrictions made me paranoid, more accepting of the daily misery of choosing foods that never quite fulfilled me but gave me those weight loss numbers: good job! But a good job doesn’t make you feel like a failure. It doesn’t make you obsess on choice and numbers and balance your self-acceptance on it. The problem with this ‘mindfulness’ and ‘lifestyle change’ dialogue is that you dread that this is your life now when it’s not getting easier and you’re not really feeling better.

One of the most valuable concepts I ran across was something that was only briefly touched upon by Tony Horton in the P90X series. Although he also learned the hard way that there is definitely such a thing as working out too much, I wondered why he never found a way to push this valuable concept more, but then, when you’re BeachBody’s bitch, it’s all about selling workouts, subscriptions and that Shakeology garbage, so I’m sure he might’ve ramped it up more if they could’ve packaged and sold it…

Intuitive eating. It’s introduced as the eventual goal beyond the lists of healthy foods you should be aiming to fuel your body with. Horton tells us that the lists are never meant to bind or restrict but to guide us into comfort with healthy foods and then trust what you’ve learned. That once you’ve tracked and weighed and found some favorite recipes… you know better so cut the cord and trust your knowledge.

Because it’s so damned scarce and influencers can’t package it to sell something with it, it only ever blips in the waters of health and fitness circles. But aiming for intuitive eating, where healthy eating and indulgences aren’t boring punishments or ‘cheats’, is truly a huge factor in a truly healthy lifestyle. It’s not really a change but an adjustment that won’t punish you or drive you crying towards craving binges.

I know how to be accountable but these programs need you to depend on them to ‘do it right’. I’m going to keep tracking my fasts and water intake but until the end of the year, I’m cutting the cord on all diet and exercise tracking and just doing what I already know works. If only because I feel like the dependence on these ‘helpful’ programs is only meant to be temporary and can easily become disordered. Too often, people quit out of frustration or quit when they reach their goal and bam, before they know it, right back to everything unhealthy because these ‘lifestyle changes’ that motivated them to reach their goals were never established as maintainable in the long term at all. 

If you’re saying that you only need to be this strict until you reach this goal, re-evaluate why you need it at all. Instead, start looking for the baseline of diet and exercise that is actually improving all aspects of your life. Get at least your minimum requirements but absolutely push when you’re feeling terrific. Have a healthy relationship with food, with your appetite, with your tastes and preferences. Don’t do someone else’s diets and exercises. Find what works for you. 

Another problem with these programs is their calculators that promise to perfectly tailor your needs when you plug in these only vaguely personal statistics. Statistics that do not consider your genetics or personal health factors like mental illness or deficiencies or hormones. Use sites like SmartBMI or really accurate BMR calculations to determine how many calories are really safe for healthy weight loss. And remember that rapid weight loss can cause issues like painful and loose skin and deficiencies and bad chemical imbalances.

I keep talking about this because in my search to find the best way to do things, no one ever told you how to stop relying on those helpful things and trust yourself and enjoy life along the way. While ‘fake it until you make it’ is also a good short term goal, a healthy life is about adapting to a series of short term husks not chaining yourself to a long term goal that makes you inflexible and miserable.

Quitting social media for a while taught me this. Start small. Dependency can often excuse itself as freedom, even when you’re completely miserable. Tell yourself you’ll try this for a week. If it feels better, try another. Don’t quite quit if it’s not the best option. Adjust and try again. I still dip onto social media when I have a distinct use for it but I don’t depend on it for a sense of well-being. Diet and exercise need to be adjusted in bits too. You can’t hate them but tell yourself it’s worth it. You can’t achieve or maintain a sense of well-being built on lying to yourself.

If you want accountability, make sure questioning if it’s really working is part of your weekly evaluation. You may find a niche that you actually enjoy and not want to change, but evaluate it weekly anyway. Because misery can hide in complacency, give yourself a chance to change your mind and make small adjustments.

Accountability is a system of checking in with yourself. There isn’t an app for that. Intuition is your tool to grow and nurture. Don’t discount it on any journey to realize your potential.