I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have an extremely hard time doing two or more “big things” in one day, especially if I’m wholly responsible for getting them done, and even more especially if they involve leaving the apartment. This means, typically, appointments, shopping trips, any [currently theoretical] shifts at work, any significant cleaning tasks, they all get their own days. This may sound like a mild annoyance (maybe, I’m not really sure how it sounds from the outside), but I have a lot of appointments. In reality, it is an actual logistical nightmare.
For example, the dentist had to cancel my most recent appointment and decided1 that instead of rebooking me they would put me on a cancellation list. Well, it’s been two months now and I’ve had to turn down every makeup appointment offered because of other appointments on those days.
I worry about this, this uptick in “big things,” partly because of what the number of appointments I have says about my health, and partly because I really do want to add some work to my week and every time I think about where I would fit it I panic.
The problem with scheduling two or more of these “big things” in one day is what happens before and after.
Before I go to a big thing, I very carefully avoid getting too involved in any other tasks so I don’t miss it. “Why don’t you set yourself a calendar alert, or even an alarm?” you wonder. In response, I point to the calendar alert and the alarm reminding me to take my 6pm pill and the zero times this month I’ve managed to take it. It isn’t that I don’t think it’s an important medication, it is, but somehow it keeps winding up being seven o’clock and I look at my phone and, mysteriously, the alarm has been turned off and the calendar alert has been ignored and the pill has not been taken. Why? Because I tend to be busy around then, and I can’t seem to pull myself out of it enough to go do something else. And this is exactly why I avoid scheduling before something else.
“Surely, then, you could do an unscheduled big thing after you’ve finished your scheduled big thing?” Well, thank you for the helpful suggestion. But a lot of scheduled big things leave me utterly exhausted. Often this is because they take me out of the apartment, out of my safe zone, into contact or even potential contact with strangers and acquaintances, and that is not an easy thing for me. A little bit of undesired social contact goes a long way in making me feel like I’ve been run over by some variety of animal. Maybe a moose.
Maybe you’re thinking, as I sometimes do, that some of the “big things” could be downgraded to “little things” by doing them more regularly and making a habit of them. Well, I have bad luck with habits. “Little things” are just as hard to remember, they just don’t pack such a wallop if I do, and don’t matter so much if I don’t get to them every single time. Most of my self-care tasks are “little things” – get to bed, get out of bed, make bed, wash face, brush teeth, nasal spray, take pills, etc. Sure, I should usually do them, and in fact I usually do, but if I forget to wash my face one morning, I’m not going to be lying awake beating myself up for it that night. Only the “big things” get that treatment.
And that is my life. Trying to remember to start short strings of tasks, trying not to do anything too interesting all day if I have an appointment that afternoon. Two decades (on and off) of therapy and I’m still working on figuring out the ins and outs of my brain well enough to function at a similar level to what other people seem to manage. Made some breakthroughs last year that might be helpful but I’m not really ready to talk about them. So for now, this is what you get: the Trouble with Things.
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1 They didn’t ask my opinion, and I have so much difficulty with unscripted phone calls2 that I wasn’t able to offer it unasked-for.
2 Actually, I have this trouble with most phone calls, but at least if I have advance warning I can write out things I might need to say.