I was away a lot longer than I originally anticipated, and not only because the last 23 days have been a bit of a blur, but also because I wanted to avoid the tracking of giving once I lost track, and then re-tracked, which led to the realization I was off-track and then I did everything to avoid the thought of having to sit down and re-track everything. Make sense? If no, you must not have ADD.
Then, this morning I thought: Why am I avoiding accountability on my blog as if it was my angry father or (insert immediate family member name here) looking at me as they shake their head, half laughing, half rolling their eyes (well, my mom usually always rolls her eyes) when I lose my keys for the nth time?
Ever since I came to the realization that I suffer from ADD (about three years ago), my life started making sense. To be clear, I don't classify my ADD as a severe disability, but more of an extreme annoyance because I've had to re-learn everything about learning how to lead an organized life with kids, a husband and dog.
I mostly love my spaz-factor. Once of the sweetest things James said to me was after a night out with friends. We had been in the getting-to-know-you phase with another couple and the husband was summing up his wife in a few sentences, mainly her strengths against his weaknesses. We got in the car and James was quiet for a couple minutes, then out of nowhere said, "You know, I can't explain you in a couple sentences like he did his wife. I just can't 'box you up' like that."
And it's true. I'm a little bit of everywhere. It's a strength and weakness. I have a love-hate relationship with my ADD.
You see, us ADDers, we forget things a lot. We lose things a helluva a lot. And, when you don't have an informed family or support system to help you learn to deal with your different working brain early, it can be a disaster as you get older and are supposed to be learning how to be a responsible adult.
Let me explain "disaster". It's a disaster because, obviously, no normal person can comprehend why we can't just write a note and quit forgetting homework assignments or appointments, and they definitely can't understand WHY WE CAN'T JUST PUT OUR KEYS (or phone) IN ONE BLOODY PLACE SO WE DON'T KEEP LOSING THEM! We can't comprehend it either.
After years of trying to track things and be better, and then failing, we sort of start feeling like failures and can't understand why we keep failing, so to stop feeling like a failure we just accept it and quit trying, generally falling into a temporary depression, which we cycle out of once we get re-motivated to really change and get better at things this time (generally in the form of over-committing to something or someone), then of course we forget about it or get overwhelmed by our commitment because we can rarely ever focus long enough to follow through, so we eventually fail and our family is like, why do you keep failing, and we're all, I DON'T KNOW!
By we, I mean me.
However, now that I know that my brain just functions differently (ha ha, save the jokes, most brilliant writers and scientists are major ADD cases), I am finally able to better avoid forgetfulness, temper expectations of myself (because of the over-committing bug I get), and have learned to let the oh-you-lost-your-phone-again-I'm-soooo-shocked sarcastic comments roll off my back. But more on that later.
And now that you know that, I can tell you that our family did give the full 20 days. That I know. I don't know what we gave or who we gave to now because I've lost track, but for the sake of accountability, I'll keep it at 15 days of giving because that's how far I got in the official blog-tracking process, and my heart and conscience are happy with that.
It did change us. We're more aware of need and more willing to be aware of need. It's not easy to ignore it once you see it. I remember seeing people dig through the trash for food back home all the time and it rarely bothered me. It grossed me out more than anything. When I saw it happen not too long ago, I fought back tears. To be so hungry, so desperate for food that you sit in McDonalds and stalk the trashcan for stranger's leftovers--their trash. I don't think we could call ourselves true followers of Christ if we saw that and it didn't affect us.
