I've actually gotten pretty good at bullying myself into doing the things I'm supposed to do and being organised. Which is tragic, considering how many things I leave undone or half done and how disorganised I am.
My beautiful craft room, that I was going to keep so neat and tidy, is absolute chaos at the minute. I'm too embarrassed to post a picture. I can't do anything in there without hyperventilating at the thought of cleaning the mess up. Or I have good intentions of tidying up but the Giant Baby follows me in (and even though nobody will diagnose him at his age because if his history of hearing problems, I'm pretty sure he has ADHD too) and he turns into a tiny tornado of grabbing fingers and "What's this? Can I have this?" and the mess gets worse.
On top of that, the sheer number of dolls I have put away "To do something with someday" is giving me anxiety. There is no way I am ever going to focus long enough to get them all done. I'm making myself cull them, mostly so I don't have a complete and utter breakdown from the weight of all these poor dolls. I even threw out my terminally ill, vinyl diseased Skipper. And I'm considering selling my Luts doll, since she's never actually been taken out of her box in the five years I've had her. I'm agonising over my My Scene and Barbie dolls. They have so much potential. There's so much I could do with them. But will I ever actually do it? And everything I consider getting rid of makes me worry that it will be the one thing I want back later.
Some things are safe. Mostly the child dolls. Maybe that's ultimately what I'll do. Keep the children and get rid of the adults. To be honest between the Dolly Surprise, Wee Three Friends and 4 Ever Best Friends dolls I've hoarded, there's enough to keep me going for years. And to continue giving me anxiety.
We also discovered that I had an entire suitcase filled with ribbon, lace, embroidery thread, beads and buttons, which meant reconfiguring all my storage to fit them in. I still haven't finished.
And in all honesty I'm sulking a little bit. No new dolls until Christmas. I would never have made that deal if I had known about the Creatable World dolls. I want one. I want them all. Even though, Mattel style, before I've even seen them in person, I'm equal parts excited and disappointed by them. None of the outfit sets particularly excite me, the wigs look pretty awful, the two darkest skin tones apparently don't exist in Australia, and real life pictures make the "redhead" look like she has light brown hair. But I want to compare them to my big Stacies and I love the concept. They're exactly the kind of doll I would have laid down my life for as a kid.
I kind of want to do a design course. But I don't know what kind of design, they're all so expensive, and by the time the kids are in school, I'll be too old to start a new career. Cue freak out.
I haven't just been freaking out. I've been sewing for Tiny, which is fun. Until Wednesday when I spent hours tucking a piece of fabric for a dress bodice and then she flipped her rocking horse, cut her lip and bled on it. I don't want to do all that tucking again but there's one crooked tuck on the piece I did, which makes me not want to bother trying to get the blood out of that bit either. Ugh! (I have no idea why this bit is indented and it won't let me change it.)
I don't have a proper ending for this post, it's really just one long typed panic attack more than anything. Oh well.
Okay Rachael, take a big deep breath, walk out into the garden and let it out with a bloody good scream!
ReplyDeleteNow doesn't that feel better???
Big hugs,
X
Lol, not a bad idea. I do deep breathing exercises with the Giant Baby when he's freaking out, and lately every time I find myself thinking "Maybe you should do this more often. Alone."
DeleteSo much to say here... there is a lot of help for adults with ADHD that doesn't involve medication. There are counselors who can help you deal with it, as well as literature. One of the things that is currently helping my daughter, is to only look at one thing at a time. Get all the books neatly back on the shelves, or refold the fabric (I'm only guessing at what the messes are.) Can you hang stuff on the walls to help with storage? If your ribbons are still on the spools, I've seen people hang all the spools on a wooden rod, for example.
ReplyDeleteYou absolutely will not be too old to change careers by the time your kids start school again! I mean, maybe if you wanted to be a ballet dancer or a basketball player, but otherwise, no. Do Australian schools offer any online courses? Can you see if there are any interesting videos on YouTube? I'm over 50 and there are lots of new skills that I want to learn, granted, I don't have to support or help support a family.
Look at the tucked dress as experience in tucking. I don't know anything about how to fix your problem, but I think you'll feel badly when Tiny outgrows the dress, if she hasn't worn it often.
You can do this! Keep doing that deep breathing. :)
Thanks Barb.
DeleteThe way I'm trying to clean up is by telling myself I don't have to do it all at once. I go in, work for a few minutes, then decide to make a coffee or do some other job I've forgotten to do and wander off.
It's a slow process. The hardest part is not making more mess in the mean time. I hope that once it's tidy, if I force myself to put everything away every time for a while, it'll get to be a habit. But I know from experience that that only works as long as I manage to keep things super tidy. As soon as there's mess, it spirals out of control!
I don't know if I mentioned but the reason I'm sewing for Tiny now, is that once she's five (Which really isn't that long) she'll be in uniform, six or seven hours a day, five days a week, forty weeks a year. It definitely won't be worth it then! I still want to redo the tucked dress, just because nobody here thought I'd have the patience to do it!