Every Little Wonder

Cold. Piles of blankets on the bed at night and ice on the windshield in the morning. I have finally switched to hot lattes at Starbucks instead of my normal iced caffeinated addictions. Sometimes I can see my breath and it makes me feel like a little girl, a jumbled ball of excitement and anticipation and magic. It hardly seems real at times that I am an adult. A(n almost) wife. A mom. God, a mom? I still want to write Christmas lists and stick them up on my parents’ fridge. I want someone else to do my laundry and force me to get out of bed on time in the morning. I still need someone to remind me to put on my coat and not wear flip-flops when it’s raining.
I’ve been living on my own on-and-off since I was 18, but I’m still always a little secretly bummed out when I realize the pantry hasn’t magically re-stocked itself and the carpet hasn’t magically been vacuumed and no one is going to give me a $20 bill and drop me off at the mall for a few hours. I’m still such a kid, I swear. I feel like I missed something, somewhere? Some secret Being an Adult class that everyone else must’ve taken? Somewhere where everyone else learned to manage a house and finances and relationships, how to balance a full-time job with homemade dinners and quality playtime? I must have been too busy lying in bed and reading Harry Potter during that class.
Fake it til you make it, right? It’s working out so far. I’m doing good, I think. And—niggling feelings that I’m going to be called out as a fraud any day now aside—I really like being an adult. The toys are way cooler on this side and I have a huge, supercozy bed, and a cute boy to snuggle up with at night and an even cuter baby boy to play with all the time and no one can ever, ever make me eat beef strogannof or write a five paragraph essay again. Being an adult is awesome.
But there are moments where I want to put glitter in my hair and read Seventeen magazine and eat nothing but cheeze-its all day. I’m so afraid Cris is going to realize he proposed to a 12-year-old girl and have second thoughts.
I mean, seriously, that’s not even legal, you guys.

Inspired by this post on Barefoot Foodie:

The people in my head: Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre, Chuck Bass, Tom Robbins, Nigella Lawson

So hey, turns out I have ADD. Over the past few weeks, a random confluence of in-person conversations, news articles, and internet stumbling-around let to me thinking there’s a chance I have something that I previously only associated with hyperactive 12-year-old boys. So I scheduled an appointment with one of them psychologist people.

After talking to the doctor a bit, she said she was going to ask me a series of questions and I had to answer with yes or no only—no maybes allowed. I thought it was going to be hard. I’m an indecisive waffler. Having to answer a yes/no question is like a form of torture for me. My brain goes crazy running though a million different hypothetical situations and well what if this and but what about that…until I end up passed out and drooling on the floor.

And then she started asking the questions.

Yes. Yes. YES.

Every single question she asked got an immediate and emphatic yes from me. No waffling required. She put the questionnaire away and gave a little chuckle: Well, that seems pretty clear-cut!

So…yeah. ADD. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. I don’t want to make a big deal of something that is certainly Not A Big Deal, but… does this mean I’m not just the laziest person in the world? The worst procrastinator ever? The biggest underachiever in the history of the forever? Is it possible that I can become the kind of person who… does things? Someone who actually Gets Shit Done? And if so… AM I STILL ME?!?!!!? WHO AM I???

It’s all making me feel vaguely conflicted and unsettled.

It’s all making me need a nap.

1. There is a not-too-small part of me that wishes I could move to Alabama and wear sundresses and drink sweet tea and call everyone ‘honey’ and bake lots of pies.
2. I’m a perfectionist, but the laziest perfectionist ever. I’d rather just not do something than have to actually, you know, try or work hard. In my twisted-up brain, effort is for suckers. If I could change anything about myself, I’d start there. (But you know, that seems hard. I’ll just sit here and eat some cake instead.)
3. I love everything about the ocean, but when I think about the deep, deep sea—even for just a few seconds—it fills me with extreme anxiety. It is too scary down there!
4. I go to Starbucks every single stupid day just so that I have an excuse to leave my cubicle. My waistline and my wallet are not happy with this AT ALL.
5. I watch Secret Life of the American Teenager. I don’t know why. I can’t even call it a guilty pleasure because there’s no pleasure involved whatsoever. It’s painful. I hate every single aspect of that show. And yet. There I go. Watching it every week.
6. Given unlimited money and support, I would want to have a huuuuge family. Like, Angelina-Jolie-huge. Like Cheaper-by-the-Dozen-huge. Like you-have-HOW-many-kids??? huge. Huge. Kids, everywhere!
7. My fantasy dream career? It changes at least every few weeks. I’m beyond jealous of people who have always known what they wanted to do.
8. The one exception? For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I grow up. It was a sad day when I realized that studying archeology would not in fact guarantee a life of endless travel and adventure and intrigue (and, uh, womanizing?).
9. I subscribe to almost 400 blogs. This is the real reason I never get any work done. It’s a disease. I need help.
10. I want to be a stay-at-home/work-from-home mom in theory, but whenever I spend more than a day or two at home with kids (mine or otherwise) I get horribly antsy and frustrated and awful. I don’t have what it takes to be fully engaged with kids (or anyone, for that matter) on a 24/7 basis.
11. I feel really guilty about that even though I know I shouldn’t.
12. I read so many ‘the truth about motherhood!’ type of articles and blog entries and whatnot before I had Ezra that I was pretty much expecting everything to be completely terrible. I thought I would regret the c-section forever (I never even think about it), I wouldn’t bond with baby right away (I fell crazy, madly in love with him the first time I saw him), I would go through a horrible bout of PPD (I know I had some low moments, but I mostly remember being incredibly happy the few months after he was born), that Cris and I would drift apart and not be able to make time for each other anymore (I think we’re doing better than ever (just don’t ask me in the middle of the night when the baby is crying and he somehow sleeps right through it (jerk))), and that I would feel like I had ‘lost myself’ (I’m still here! Everything’s the same, but I get this cute baby now! Bonus!). I sometimes feel bad that things were so much easier for me that they were for many other women.
13. I think I used to be a good writer but either I’ve totally forgotten how or I’m going through an awful, years-long bout of writer’s block. Hence the lame posts and lists like this.
14. Uh, sorry?