A View Of Dandelions
I slowly moved all the things in my house from one place to another until, eventually, a space appeared. I put a new desk in it. It faces the back window and looks out over the garden, a neat row of cacti on the windowsill and a view of the dandelions growing through the cracks in the path. It's the first time in a long time that I’ve had somewhere to sit at out of bed, somewhere that wasn't at our overflowing dining table, and even if I don't have the energy to sit there for long, I have craved it. I have kept the surface almost empty: a pot plant, my timer, a photo of my beloved. I was sure it would solve everything.
When Monday morning came, I sat down at my desk as planned. It took a long, empty day of staring numbly at the dandelions, wandering off and returning, to realise that I was still lonely, scattered, and completely unable to start the things I wanted. I have always loved the phrase, “wherever you go, there you are,” and yet still forget its truth.
My painful struggle with wildly inconsistent focus, task execution and organisation is a private one stretching my whole life and one that has mostly stayed out of sight. A life of quiet, solitary days working for myself, or not at all, means no one has really seen how often I try to focus on something and can't, how many plans, schedules and strategies I follow enthusiastically and briefly before forgetting them again, or how often I fail to follow through. I've always been secretly grateful that no one knows my endless, endless days spent with a lump in my throat because I didn't manage to do something important again; or my long hours stuck and paralysed over the simplest tasks; my whole body willing in way that I just can’t seem to translate into movement. Everything must be broken down into the smallest steps, written out, reminders set, alarms scheduled, even things I've done a thousand times before, and even then I can find myself lost, as if I've written myself a map in the wrong language, or one that charts a different landscape entirely. To do anything takes all of me. Not wonder I am always exhausted.
Others only see what makes it through the gauntlet of my attention. My mind is known to you as quick to notice the minutiae of life, but behind the scenes, it is so very hard to tether it to anything bigger, repetitive, or consistent. What emerges from my struggle is usually impressive enough to conveniently conceal what gets left behind or what hurts in the process. This is something I have been thankful for and have hid behind my whole life. The cognitive pain inherent in everything I do is unseen and uncounted. I have always been glad of that: at its dazzling sleight of hand. I like not having all my dysfunction on show.
Whether the problems with my executive function are the result of my disability and fatigue, or something separate that has been masked by them, is something I have been gradually exploring. What matters is that it doesn't get any easier. That is why I put my head down on my empty desk last Monday and wept, because these are battles I have been fighting for a lifetime, oh, how I wanted it to be different this time. The days stretch wide and inviting and there is so much I want to do, achieve, but - clear desk or not - without help, my time unravels around me, flowing in all directions of not at all. Finding a straight path through it all is just not something I can do. Or, at least, not something I can do alone.
It was sheer desperation that made me Google "someone to help me focus.” It’s also why, the following day, I ended up face to face at my new desk with a stranger over Zoom for a Focusmate session. We would share a few details of our task, then mute and work together silently, cameras on, for twenty five minutes until prompted by a timer to stop and say a cheerful goodbye, at which point we could choose to carry on alone, take a break, or book another session. The first time my heart pounded and I sweated through my clothes, self-conscious until the time was up. By my third session, I was hooked. I told my small writing buddy group about it, that although it didn't fix everything, just having another person present and quiet seemed to unlock something frozen inside me, and they suggested we try our own version together, so I did that with my friend too, on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday morning, and by the end of the week I had done more focused work in a week than I've managed to in a very long time.
This new discovery still fresh and surprising in my lap, I have found myself wondering again: why is it that we think we should always be able to do everything without help? Why is it that we see self-sufficiency as the gold standard we should aim for? Do we think solo struggle is somehow nobler?
What if the deeper truth is that we need other people to centre us, support us, hold us, and help us to stay on track? What if I need that and simply can't do this alone?
Maybe that's the biggest cosmic joke of all: that I don't have to, if I don’t want to. Help was and is abundant once I looked for it and once I allowed it in. Some struggles are unavoidable, but insisting that ‘I can manage this by myself’ might just be the most pervasive self-sabotaging behaviour I have left.
I sat and drew the dandelions this afternoon and it was both as blissful and agonising as all focused tasks are for me, my mind as stubborn, bright and fast as spring wind. I have been noticing how dandelions’ faces close right up in cloud and rain or low light and how it’s only when in the company of sunshine that they open and stretch to be their full, recognisable, overflowing, giving selves.
Unlike a dandelion, I can choose to seek out the sunshine I need. That is what I’m taking forward this week.
P.S Thank you A & R x