Learning Dis-tract-abilities

After many years of wrestling with a brain that both likes to dream and think about lots of things but then misfires and forgets the most mundane of specifics...I discovered that I have a condition called ADOS. Attention Deficit Oooohhh Shiny. This is a real condition, where the brain never fully leaves behind certain behaviors from childhood. It manifests in rabbit-trail conversations, where one can be discussing the mystery of Luther's leaving the Catholic faith to start the Reformation and marry a nun, then jumps the track completely to admiring the exquisite handmade necklace my neighbor has on. Many nights, I wake up with myriads of thoughts churning in my head and then can't get back to hibernating. They say that your brain works on sussing out solutions to your thoughts and problems while you are asleep. I wish I could go back to the netherworlds of dark, sweet slumber and just dream and figure everything out without having to actually be conscious of it. Life is a maze of puzzles, connections, people, problems, solutions, and then, not. They say that without a plan, things are just happening TO you. And you're not making change in the world. I don't know if that's true. I think it may be more like we're in a big boat, traveling the seas of this life. We're trying to navigate ...we've got a map, a rudder, sails, a crew...but the weather keeps changing and the waves tend to swamp our silly plans. Which reminds me of one of my favorite passages in Mark that talks about Jesus sleeping through the storm, then stopping it dead in its tracks and him telling the disciples they don't have enough faith. I love that.  It's his humanness and his God-ness in one fell swoop.

I like storms, but only when I'm safe and dry and warm. The idea and thrill of it is exciting. But not when you're out there soaked to the skin and anticipating lightning bolts any moment. I guess what I'm doing here is summing up my last three weeks of writing and thoughts... We can try to make our lives snug, buttoned-up and free of danger, particularly people-danger. It's our nature to want it to be that way. The difficulties of relationships, confrontation and actually walking through problems rather than walking around them can be more perilous than any thunderstorm. There are so many distractions right there at our fingertips: work, a bottle, entertainment, the internet and its images, gadgets, games, a bowl of cookie dough. All that stuff can be more comforting than actual living and working it out. I've been navigating marriage with the same (very patient) dude for nigh thirty-four years and still have days that I don't know how to ask for what I need without starting a hell-cat-fight.

I'm very much the freakout queen, always shrieking about the tornadoes swirling around me. I embrace life like a wide-eyed child but in the next breath I fear death. Then I remember his words to that ghastly storm. I think about him sleeping on that pillow and I can't help but laugh, thinking about those disciples flipping out. They must be my relatives. God says a lot about being still, a whole lot of times. I want to avoid that, substitute for that, distract for that. ADOS. But it's in the still, small voice that is on the other side of the wind that I finally find peace.