Tag: dailyprompt-2001

All of Them, with AuDHD

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Which activities make you lose track of time?
View all responses

I could while away the hours just writing, and often do. But there are other activities that make time irrelevant:

  • “Playing” with My Computer
    • Most people would not consider installing an operating system “playing.” However, I like to try out different versions of Linux and can spend hours perfecting my desktop. Right now, I just have the vanilla version of Ubuntu installed, but lately I’ve tried Cinnamon, Mate (like the tea), KDE, and in a fit of insanity, switched over to Red Hat. The installer crashed, which is why I’m back to Ubuntu. I don’t know why I bothered with Red Hat. I haven’t used it since college. I think I was just feeling a bit sentimental, not realizing that the commands are different and I would have to learn a different way of “speaking” to my desktop. To be clear, I did not cause the installer crash. I just realized I didn’t want to have to learn a whole new system, making me grateful for the same old crap I already had.
  • Gaming
    • Gaming should be in quotes because I really only like “Skyrim.” I’m not sure you can call yourself a proper gamer if you only like one game. I was introduced to “Skyrim” by my brother-in-law, because I was watching him play on his Xbox and thought, “that looks fun.” A few days later I was fighting dragons on my PC. And in fact, I had to buy it twice because of the modding community. The first time, I bought it through GOG and the scripting engine was broken by an update. I have it through Steam now, which allows me to install it on both my Windows and Linux PCs. I am sure that you could get the GOG version working on Linux if you were a programmer, but Steam support is so much better that it’s not worth the hassle.
      • If you are interested, my character is a Wood Elf/Bosmer named Quinn. I’m deadly with a bow and arrow, so I generally conjure companions for melee (Dremora Lords are particularly good) and find a spot to pick people off, hidden behind a rock.
  • Cleaning
    • When I clean and organize, it takes hours because I will find things I haven’t used in forever. It stops the process as I sort through pictures, books, knickknacks, you name it. But there’s a rhythm to cleaning that is soothing, and I enjoy it when I am able. I have trouble taking care of myself due to my autism, but when I’m on top of it, I am absolutely “Anal Annie.” And in fact, I should probably take a nap to get ready for a marathon cleaning session today. I’d like to be able to host a friend this weekend and my apartment isn’t ready for that kind of commitment. If you make promises to yourself like that and often beat yourself up with guilt, I have a book for that called “How to Keep House While Drowning.” It has been revolutionary in helping me do what I can do with my compromised state. Executive dysfunction is real.
  • Reading
    • I inhale books. I’m a member of Kindle Unlimited because I’ve made a lot of author friends and want to read them all for the cost of one book a month. It’s also nice to be able to get most books that are recommended to me through KU as well. I’ve had to buy very little recently, but I’ve certainly gotten my money’s worth. For the $12 I paid this month, I read five books that were $8.00 apiece, and another that was $20.
  • Walking
    • I’m a member of Planet Fitness, and one of my favorite activities is to set a program on the treadmill for incline and zone out to the TV, YouTube, or a podcast. If I’m listening to music, it’s usually “Podrunner,” a running podcast sorted by beats per minute and the DJ is fantastic. But most of the time I’m listening to whatever is on TV at the club. I tend to show up during all the talk shows, reminiscent of when my mother and I used to walk every day during The Oprah Winfrey Show.
  • Watching TV
    • I love to write so much that I’m always looking for smart television to up my game in terms of story construction. However, I also enjoy actual construction and “This Old House” is my comfort show. I have learned so much that I would seriously think about buying a house if I was married… because I don’t want to do all that work by myself. 😉

Oooh, even thinking about me being married again gives me the shivers. I do not want to get lost in thought on that. So I think we’ll call it for today and pick back up later. I have a house to clean……… ALL BY MYSELF, THANKS.

Whose time is it anyway?

~ one4paws ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Which activities make you lose track of time?
View all responses

Sometimes my time sensing mind is like a goldfish and every 10 seconds something new has my attention. Other times it’s on hyper focus mode and nothing can drag me from whatever is captivating me. Sometimes my brain is just too loud to know that time even exists, and I need a nap and maybe I’ll be human when I wake up.

In general, though, having done so much work where each task takes approximately 5-10-15 etc minutes, I can usually set an internal timer and am generally spot on as to how much time has passed.

Now, I have noticed that, for me, there are places that have their own time fields. Like the barn or the river. When I am in those places, the timing of the outside world no longer matters, minutes no longer denote the passing of our lives, but gentle calm breaths and slow deliberate movements take over. I can be absorbed into the peace of my activity. Places that have their own times are places that call you to become fully present. When you’re working with horses for example. Your plan is to just go on a simple trail ride, from your own barn on your own property. Even if you know how long your trail is and how long it may take you to walk that trail on your own feet, you cannot assume that doing that trail on horseback will have the same yields. Horses, well they’re wild animals with their own minds. So planning that trip with your best equine pal is gonna add some time cause first you have to get them ready. You gotta brush them and check their feet and get all their tack on. Sometimes this is a straightforward endeavor and sometimes Ol’ Ginger has a rock stuck in her hoof and is having a real bad day and tries to smash you against the wall of her stall each time you pick up any of her feet (of which there are 4). So now you were fixin to go on a relaxing trail ride and you’re making progress towards your goal but you’re also sweating and swearing and bruised from your friend trying to crush you with her whole body. It’s not my fault you can’t stay out of the gravel Ginger! Now all the rest of her clothes have to go on and you also know that in order to get that cinch tight enough that ol’ Ging can’t slide you off on a tree on the first corner, you’re gonna have to walk her around the pasture for 15 minutes, and gradually tightening that cinch up. Ging is all dressed up, you’ve got your lunch and beverages in your saddle bags and are now ready to head out. Going from the barn to the trail head is easy as pie but then there’s the creek to cross. You and Ginger both know she is able to cross the creek but each time she sees it she has to remember her abilities and you’re the one who has to remind her. She decides today she isn’t afraid of the creek but she is afraid of the bridge so as long as you go around the bridge instead of over, you’re both in good shape. And thus your ride begins, and knowing you’ve set aside the whole day to go on this adventure you and Ginger ride off into the woods to relax and deepen your bond with eachother and Mother Nature.

Similarly with the river or the ocean, the destination is known, but the journey and experience are what really matter and if existing in nature isn’t a time we should let our existence be timeless then I don’t know when it should.

People have told me so many times in my life how patient I am. When I have been working with children or monkeys, or dogs or horses, the list goes on.. For me, in those moments, it didn’t feel like patience, it felt like pressance.

The time I am spending with my dog, me standing calmly still and making soothing noises while she is overly excitedly trying to engage that other dog walking by some of that is patience, the patience to relase any judgement I have of myself or am percieving in others because my dogs is making ‘a scene’. But most of it for me is presence, because if I am there with her, while she’s too excited about that other dog, I can sense the moment when her brain has space to listen to me again and I can call her back and reward her. Then our bond and trust is that much stronger because I was patient with myself and present with her. It’s the same with other animals, including human primates. If we can have patience and empathy with ourselves, we don’t project our terrifying stories onto others. And that leaves space for understanding and growth.

Time doesn’t really exist anyway, so I may as well focus mine on things that do make me lose track of it, because then, I will know I am present and doing something I enjoy so much that I don’t even remember the rest of the world has a clock.

In the Right Context, All of Them

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Which activities make you lose track of time?

I have an extreme case of time blindness.

Some of it’s little, like letting my characters play while I’m cooking so that movements are in quick bursts as I react to how things sound/smell.

Some of it’s big, like not having the fight I needed to have with Supergrover eight years ago and knowing when to give up. She knew she couldn’t give up then, and so did I. I am more sorry than she’ll ever know that I decided she was worth keeping around. This is because her words lifted me up, and also dropped me from maximum height for the most damage.

That’s because my mind doesn’t track like hers, and she invalidated it. I was so in “don’t displease her” mode that I couldn’t look at her and say, “look. You forgave me, but nothing has changed since we declared we were forgiven. I still feel exactly the same way, and you’re deaf.” She’ll take responsibility for making a mistake, but if there are consequences for me from her decisions, she’s proven time and again that she’s not capable of hearing me and how dare I even have the audacity to ask her questions? She cut off her nose to spite her face, and I am enjoying thinking about how that’s not working out for her the way she might have thought, and not for malice. It’s that nothing on this web site would have been published if I was talking to her and didn’t have to talk about her because conversation was a viable option.

But because she understands exactly none of that now (big fan and patron until I started doing the same thing to her that I do to everyone in my life, no exceptions unless they make shitty characters), she feels free to write me off with no regrets. However, she’s fully capable of passing regret onto me.

She couldn’t hear a problem and not have it echo deeply as if she was doing something irredeemable. I reacted the same way to her at times. It grew unhealthy, and when I tried to change the pattern, she let me have it.

We are both too goddamn arrogant in our daily lives, and that played into it, too. I was just willing to take off my armor with her, even though she’d gotten dressed a long time ago.

So, every day I walked bare skin through a mine field, praying they didn’t go off.

This repeated every day for eight years. Even when I was arrogant, I was an inch tall trying to make up for that fact. She’s such a part of me that she had no idea what it would do to me later in life if we bonded, because she wasn’t thinking about me and what I do.

Thinking about me and what I do is my entire problem with her. She thinks that she’s protecting me by not telling me anything, ever, and it leaves me in a fucking state of panic.

That’s due to the trauma bond screaming, I guess.

She is every bit as responsible for our story as I am, but it’s convenient to step around that. She stopped owning it years ago, and by that I mean she’d say one thing and do another. That’s fine unless you also don’t express why you’re doing something. Helping me to understand was never her priority, and she didn’t want to help me.

I didn’t notice when signal became noise, and by that I don’t like being noise for her when I was a huge signal. We both have responsibilities to each other and we just stopped negotiating them.

When I was sick, she knew I was going to be sick forever, and though I’d told her I had mental health issues in the beginning, she didn’t know how they’d present. I didn’t either. My problem lies not with what I did, because I know I made a mistake and I own it. Have apologized for it every single day since even if it wasn’t written down. My problem is that she forgave me, and I was so focused on forgiveness that I allowed for some very bad behavior because I thought I deserved it.

I didn’t hold her accountable to the words “I forgive you,” and treated myself as if I was the sole cause of all her issues from 2013 til a few months ago. The worst part is that I spent an enormous amount of time on self-discovery, self-reflection, healing, all that. It has made a difference to everyone but her. It’s just another way for her to say one thing and do another. If I’m angry, she’ll yell at me. If I quietly express displeasure, she’ll tell me she doesn’t have time for it and to go find new friends. I wish she’d known what kind of person she was before she put all her shit on me. I got well, and she acted the same. She thought she was such a big shot for keeping our relationship going because I was such a train wreck, as if I should have been so grateful.

I was, because I couldn’t see what she was doing. She kept me on a hook, and is now enjoying watching me twist in the wind as I struggle with questions we both should have had to answer. Her failure to show up probably comes from fear, and mine comes from having done it so often I’m bleeding emotionally without any support from her.

I can’t rely on her, because she’s just as much of a train wreck as all the other people I’m trying to attract as readers, because she doesn’t accept being human and fallible as valid. The only thing she understands is her own process, and everyone else is fucked up.

It’s not malicious. She’s the product of her experience. But I don’t have to live with it, either.

This friendship was an activity that made me lose way too much time, but I do not regret it. What I mean is that I wish I had realized that in her mind, I’d always be sick. There’d never come a time when my mental health was managed enough that I was capable of being her friend. But she couldn’t say that, so she engineered a relationship in which I’d feel so bad I’d quit.

It worked.