Writing Interrupted

There I was all excited to start researching anecdotal stories for my ADHD eBook when I slipped into a time vortex. I thought I was careful about those sort of things, but here I am two weeks later, dazed and more than a little confused. I saw a blur of pink, some bling coated jeans, and hair spray, then I woke up this morning. What was I supposed to be doing again?

Yes, my girls are with their mother for the next two weeks, and my time with them is over. Now I must adjust to life again without them. After seven months of this you might think that I would be accustomed to it, but when you throw Depression into the mix I'm only now making sense of things. Months ago I could see the difference between sadness and Depression, but now my awareness has become even more keen, most likely because I am healing. The mental fog is lifting, and I am starting to see the new Depression triggers for Life2.0. In fact, I only noticed last week that my Depression flares with every kid switch. It seems obvious in hindsight, but when your day is spent surviving, fighting off Depression, raising girls, and running around like a crazy person, you can miss the obvious.

There is something else I noticed. I pined for single women with children during the two weeks without the kids. I am so very glad I noticed I was doing that before I got myself in trouble. I spent months wondering what was wrong with me. Fortunately, I stopped myself before placing a Craigslist ad:

SWM searching for SWF with buttloads of kiddies. Toilet trained only please. No pets. Sanity optional.

Knowledge is power, so goes the expression, and I am indeed more knowledgeable now. In fact, knowing what I had to look forward to I thwarted the Depression episode yesterday by keeping my spirits up and my awareness even higher. For the first time since the divorce I did not become devastated the day after the switch. This is amazing progress. What a shame I lost all that time in the two weeks previous in an ADHD time vortex. It's a blemish on my otherwise shiny new awareness.

I can see now that if I can't compensate for being a single dad with three girls during my time with them, then I might have to have alternative writing goals every two weeks. I can be aggressive now that I am alone, but in a short while I will need to reduce my expectations when my daily responsibilities change. Perhaps if I set lower goals while the girls are with me I might be able to actually accomplish something instead of setting unrealistically high goals and accomplishing nothing.

~Dˢ