I know everyone gets distracted, especially in a world so full of stimuli that can be overwhelming at times with bright or flashing lights and voices that never shut up. Sometimes, when I feel distracted, I struggle to break away and refocus. Sometimes this struggle is successful, other times not—regardless, it’s very draining. When I fail to refocus, I might feel really bad about myself for what seems like lack of self-discipline or self-control. At this point, I’ve probably abandoned my original project, pulled into orbit of this other project {the word ‘project’ is used very loosely, I’ve gotten drug into conversations or called by the beeping oven or whispering vacuum}. This other ‘project’ has my devotion, but it might be resentful—I’d rather be doing the other thing, I wish I could be doing the other thing, I’m stuck doing this thing because I should at least finish something I started. When I’d smoke pot, my focus was stronger…but also, somehow, easier to break if a distracting element came up. Sometimes a body simply wants to do something relaxing, but what is that for a restless spirit with a mind constantly on overdrive?
The wrapping projects were soothing sometimes and I’ve thought of an interesting new project that might need approval before I begin. An issue I’ve often encountered, triggered by chronic unemployment, is the fact that part of my restless spirit is linked to the fact that I’m not paid for anything. When I’m okay and thinking clearly, this doesn’t matter because there is more to life than getting paid—when I’m not okay, however, I get anxious about what I’m doing…constantly. Other than the money my spousums gives me {which is less an allowance or payment for services rendered and more because I hold our backup bank account} and he doesn’t get enough to make him satisfied.
For most of my life I’ve felt luxury and thriving were dreams I could almost bring into reality; perspective is an essential element to the equation ‘how to thrive in a money-based system on the edge of collapse’ but that perspective has been hard to hold on to. During one of my ‘no mistakes, only hard lessons’ phases {2010 or so} I was constantly hearing the world around me say I needed to let go of things. What things? Unimportant things, things that don’t matter anymore—vague and abstract elements that were impossible to clarify because reality is stressful and everyone has damage.
Keeping a tight grip on my perspective was challenging because of this—I doubted myself on confusing levels as if I was trying to hold on to things that were serving me ill. For 3 years, I was so overwhelmed and distracted, I don’t have any memories. The turn of a century is a powerful event and that power, from what I’ve seen, has done some fucked up shit.
My magical perspective has been a challenging element to embrace in this part of the country; one of the things I’ve learned is the confusing overlap between magic/self-power and confident women who don’t back down to impudent men. “I don’t care about your magic, I just don’t like your attitude” echoed in my head for a while as I felt suspicious and out of place almost everywhere I was. I found peace with animals, wildlife, trees and mostly I just felt uncomfortable around people. Being unable to truly know if I was uncomfortable with ‘people’ or just ‘those people’ caused a frustrating loop that triggered an almost continuous wave of distraction. Unable to answer an important question, oofa
