Almost none of this is work stuff, even the work stuff

Sometimes I look at ADHD life hacks and realize how many of these things I have already crafted into my life. Just watched one that suggested:

• Wear a work uniform: for me, when it isn't scrubs, it's black pants, a shell and a cardigan, I love the ease and reliability of it!
• Eating the same thing every day: Right now there are 5 Ball jars of yogurt & 5 sandwich bags of granola in my kitchen!, 
• Apparently hitting snooze causes decision fatigue and makes ADHD brains tired. I don't hit snooze anymore though I do have my AM blue light which helps me with the sleep-to-awake transition. In my experience, changes in body/mind states are hard on ADHD folks, and I struggled with the snooze button every morning when I was a teen and in my 20s, my daughter struggles with it now,
• To reduce strain of thinking of meals, have themed dinner nights (like "leftover mondays" and "mexican tuesdays"): that isn't quite what I do, but I do make sure I have the stuff for a week’s worth of meals and I post the things we can eat on the fridge, then I just have to decide any given night which of those things I feel like making. I often have frozen pizza, wontons, tamales, etc. that I can make instead if I decide the things on the list are too labor intensive for my energy level,
• They had things to say about grocery shopping, keeping a list and all that. I use an app called Picniic that has a number of family coordination tools. My kids are not as enthusiastic about them as I am but I paid for the upgrade so we could all share shopping & to do lists, calendars and other features that I’m still working on maximizing. 
• I also have a bowl where I keep my keys, right by the front door, no thought involved, keys go in the key bowl. End of story. 

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Working with a private doc in the community today and I saw that he has his own order set in the computer. Got me thinking about my orders and how I customize them and what I’d do it I were writing my own order sets. Some of the things are really technical and not interesting except to other people who need to write orders. But one of the tangents my mind explored was the communication between L&D nurses and doctors, what needs clearance to order and what gets done and then told to me later. I’m thinking of epidurals. It is really common for a patient to get an epidural and then I’m told about it afterward. I wonder if I would like to know this beforehand when I’m in private practice - managing patients who I know, with whom I have a relationship and have had a chance to do some prenatal education. I’m super supportive of people getting epidurals. I just think we don’t do a good enough job talking about how they change labor. I want to do a better job as a doctor and as a patient advocate. I know I’m not a doula anymore and I won’t usually be able to help manage the moment to moment, contraction by contraction experience of labor. I just want to be sure my patients are clear about what they want, what they get and how decisions influence the unfolding of events. 

Clearly this is not a fully formed thought, but it is where my mind went this morning.

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I’m back in a missing being married phase of mourning. It is tough, and I’m feeling the loss of something that I had for a long time- a partner, a helpmeet, a friend. Someone to roll their eyes at our kids being obnoxious teens with. Part of my pain is due to my own healing, I’m dating, it’s going well, but it is still dating. Getting to know people, deciding when I feel like spending time with or communicating with a near stranger. Also this is an anniversary time, of graduation, of moving arrangements, it was all so fresh and raw and painful last year, and I remember that. I miss what I wanted to have here. And some of my reaction is due to things happening in my coparents life - decisions he’s making and that make me think “if only” and why did he have to decide to do these things now and not 2 years ago, when there was still time. Why? If my study of the human body has taught me anything, asking why humans do anything is a question destined for dissatisfaction. Whether it is inquiring why a body develops autoimmune responses or why blood vessels clog or why the mind thinks anything at all, who knows why? No one knows and asking is just inviting frustration.

But why? Why can’t I have a life, the life I wanted. Why? I am a cope-er, and a survivor and even at times a thriver, so I’m going to be just fine. I’m going to fix things and I’ll be okay. But I can’t stop asking why.

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Regard something you know about yourself that you just know. You don’t think about it, in fact, it is just there. Your toenails grow, you have all your fingers and toes, knees bend, ears on each side of the head. Something like that. Something that is bedrock to your existence to the point that you don’t think about it.

Here’s what I know: my body is disgusting. It just is. I know this with a fundamental certainty that you take for granted regarding your toes. Sometimes I have feelings about it, sometimes I manage not to think about it, sometimes I even put lipstick on the pig and feel pretty satisfied with myself. I mean nothing in the world is all bad, so my body grew and fed people, has been fit and active, and while it is relatively deconditioned right now it has been capable in the past for sure and I’m sure will be again someday.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying this to garner pity or attention, or to get you tell me your opinion of my opinion or worse, your opinion of my body. I’m not saying this to GET anything. I’m saying it because I’ve only recently realized that this bedrock assumption exists and is different from how other people view their bodies. I spent a few days kind of rocked back by the insurmountable reality of it. I have deeply internalized that while I may be more disgusted with my body right now than I have been at times past, there really is no point in the game when I get to be happy with it, only varying degrees of displeased.

In a way, this is a victory. In the past I have set bars for myself, if I were to fit into those clothes, do these exercises, weigh this many pounds, THEN I would be okay. But now, I realize, that was a finish line I was never going to cross. There is no moment in time where I say that I have arrived, I have achieved the body that makes me happy, makes me feel satisfied. I can stop trying to come up with the perfect set of circumstances under which I will be satisfied. Sure I am disgusted, but I’m also free.