#marble thoughts

taking it back to a place of diagnosis. i started to go to therapy for issues completely (so i thought) unrelated, i had believed in high school and college that i had adhd but never could seek out therapy or psychiatry. as the weeks go by since my therapist said hey, maybe this is something we should talk about, im seeing how it affects Every Part of my Life.. i currently have a job filled with small tasks, just things that need to get done for science to happen. i have my headphones on all day every day consuming large quantities of media of all sorts regardless of quality. started to get into audiobooks in november after being recommended the libby app and have never looked back since! until recently

as of today, i have read over 70 books this year. before getting this job i had read very infrequently and i think thats due to the aforementioned adhd. spent years of middle school, junior high, high school, college using so much energy to cheat in school and getting really good at skimming for answers. so it felt really good to have read so much recently! the VAST majority of these have been read via audiobook which i vehemently defended and will absolutely still defend.

in august of this year i started feeling really jaded about the idea of turning on my audiobooks at work. i have read maybe one or two books this month compared to even just june when i read like 10. my drive is depleted. i felt really ashamed and embarrassed; spent the first few months of the year lowkey bragging about how much i read and honestly implying that im somehow better than others who dont read or read much fewer. especially after i went through this whole digital detox thing (story for another time) in the spring and really locked in to my audiobooks.

something crucial about adhd that im finding out is how my adhd is the REASON for my eternal need to speedrun everything. no matter what, its a sprint to the finish line. if i want to do it i better do it fast. dont know if anyone has ever said this before, maybe im the first ever to think it - sprinting is not sustainable. my rate of audiobook consumption was unsustainable. this is not how i want to be consuming books. i would start an audiobook, listen on 1.3x speed, finish it in a couple days, once it finished i would say oh wow that was good or oh wow that was bad or oh wow that was weird, then put it on goodreads with an unserious, witty review (more on this for a later date) and move on.

i have read some insanely good books this year. i have read books that make me go omfg whoa, and then in the pursuit of remaining entertained i would have something else on in under one minute. never thinking about its meaning, impact, why i felt so moved, why i loved it. reflecting on this i almost feel like i need to go back and reread some of the books ive read THIS YEAR because i turboloaded my brain before during and after reading them and now cannot recall certain details or verbalize how i felt about them.

i have decided to abstain from audiobooks for at least a couple weeks, i havent touched them in a couple weeks from a lack of enthusiasm. reading is not a sprint. i will absolutely still use audiobooks but mindfully. audiobooks are amazing tools but the way that i was interacting with them created a model of consuming literature that was entirely besides the point of reading and did not promote comprehension, deeper meaning, personal insights. i am going to limit myself to one book a week because hey thats plenty. i dont need to crank out multiple books in one week! that is ridiculous and in no way am i comprehending them adequately! why am i speed reading books just to get them over with and onto the next one?? answer: adhd.. and if i feel particularly inspired maybe i will even post book reviews!

I have always been existential, this is nothing new. thinking of life and death as a girl in the catholic faith was immensely confusing and scary and this feeling has yet to ease. i signed myself up for therapy a few months ago because after the passing of my grandmother the topic regained its place at the forefront of my mind and i didnt know, still dont know, how to soothe my fears

long story, but i might still tell it - after a summer of inner challenge and turbulence i stayed with my grandpa for a couple days while in town for a wedding. he is currently dating. at 80 years old he is dating for the first time since meeting my grandma, married for 58 years. my mom is really upset, i think she feels slighted; she held the primary female role in his life for 10-15 years as his wife worsened with dementia and began her sloooooow journey from earth. to where? jury's out.. devoutly catholic and the most kind and wonderful soul to exist, i have never felt more certain of anything as i do her ascension into heaven, or whatever greatness may lie after death. i feel certain of little but i know she has been rewarded for a life lived wholly and entirely in warmth and love. she was sunshine and rainbows and all that.

anyways. my mom is upset, i think she believes her one and only father has forgotten about her one and only mother and is desecrating her memory by dating a woman i have termed his "lady friend" (this woman, her children call my papa her "gentleman friend"). she will never stop missing her mother. it would be a feat as impossible as anything colloquially impossible, and an ask entirely unreasonable. she will never stop missing her mother.

when staying with my papa last weekend, he brought it up to me looking for my opinion. we have never talked about anything deep, we sat at his dining room table with our coffees (his decaf keurig pod in a snow white mug, my cold smores latte in a can). i was raised here. my high chair was set up at its end, my hands stole away dozens of melt-away mints, my cheesy potatoes were picked at, my lunches stained the cabin-themed placemats. many, many grueling hours spent not by me at this table, my papa feeding his sick wife first with encouragement and reassurance then with forks and spoons held by ever-steady hands carrying calorically dense food into an unwilling mouth that is gradually forgetting what to do next. my papa and my mom and his roster of rotating full-time nurses that read to her children's books and feed medication and know to check that it's swallowed.

"life is short, and life is even shorter when you're my age" is what he said to me then. next to the passport renewal forms for a 10-year book never stamped, he picked up a tissue. drying tears on weathered cheeks next to moles grown large by sun and time. i have his same gray eyes. his lady friend, in her 70s and an aide to grandma in her last years, told him she didn't want to be alone anymore. she had enough of 33 years alone, after two husbands taken too soon, and kids and work and grandkids and more work to keep busy and keep reality at bay. its a lonely life, this one, and she had enough of it. are we expected to wait until life has had enough of us, or has life allotted us the privilege to choose? how dare one spit in the face of life and decide to remain, patient and stubbornly sat, in the throes of despair when companionship presents itself at his dining room table? i pick a tissue for my own eyes. silently sniffling as i endure the weight of this conversation and the deep understanding of its value. two sad Polish eyes looking at their two replicas two generations down the line and that much less Polish. i wonder if they note the resemblance as mine do.

Recently was diagnosed with adhd. everything makes sense now..! after years of chalking it up to being a Sagittarius i now have a new view as to why i am this way. my therapist asked me to think of strengths associated, reasons why this may not be a character flaw or entirely a hinderance. i have described myself as "overly ambitious" in the past - so many thoughts, projects, concepts, almost an excess. ambitious to the point of incompletion, boredom, whatnot. too much happening up there & not enough time, will, or perseverance to see it all through.

marblegard3n is my garden and i am marble. in my life i have constructed many gardens throughout my time under various similar aliases (twitter, discord, notepads, sketchbooks, my patio). a deep seeded desire for a place of my own to receive my ideas in any form they come. a place for words and pictures and recipes and whatever else comes from my attempt to process, understand, document the life around me.