readalittle-writealittle

[readalittle-writealittle]

please, don't cry

[readalittle-writealittle]

A constant companion 🧚🏼‍♀️✨✨✨

[readalittle-writealittle]

[readalittle-writealittle]

As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.

This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.

I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.

I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!

And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??

If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.

Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.

So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.

And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.

[readalittle-writealittle]

THE advantage of memorizing poetry is that when somethings happening, maybe even you're in a situation or a location, you can just go "ok. lady of shallott time" and boom. you reclaimed your mental space and attention for YOU for the next ten minutes

[readalittle-writealittle]

So last night was my first welding class and the second i walked through the door the teacher said “hey you’re zoe right” and I started to panic because how does the teacher immediately know who I am fuck did I have this teacher before how come i don’t recognize him fuck fuck i’m a terrible person

turns out i’m just the youngest person in the class by about 30 years so the deduction wasn’t that hard

anyways, apparently people keep taking the welding class over and over again and the wait list is like 100 people long and so it was by some act of providence of pure dumb luck that I managed to get a spot. This also means I was the only person there who hadn’t welded before.

I’m stationed at a big center table where the teacher can keep an eye on me, and everyone else is in booths on the surrounding walls each making their own projects. And these are impressive looking projects. One guy is making a side table, a woman is making a giant metal rocking chair, and another guy was making a wind chime out of old compressed air canisters. 

The elderly gentlemen in the booth right behind me introduces himself to me as Jim and asks me if this is my first time and I say yeah and he smiles at me and tells me I’m gonna love it and how this class is so fun.

Immediately Jim becomes my new best friend. He comes over whenever I stop to take a break and asks how I’m doing and even helps me take the welding mask off when I couldn’t figure out how to do it myself. 

at one point i see Jim and another old guy talking to the teacher and i catch the old guy pointing at me. now being pointed at is usually never a good thing. the teacher has had me welding edges of scrap metal together so I can get a feel for the equipment. The teacher comes to check on me and I jokingly as him if those seasoned guys were making fun of me. 

Turns out I’m super good at welding and the old guy didn’t believe it was my first time welding ever and Jim was trying to convince him I was a newbie. :D

So for the entire 3 hour long class, like 15 middle aged and elderly people would periodically come by my table and check in with me, making sure I’m having fun and asking me questions about my life, and things like, do you know where the drinking fountain is, making sure I’m taking breaks, looking out for me and that kind of thing, all while being completely kind and supporting and complimenting me on my welding skills. 

and that’s how a community center welding class gave me 15 new grandparents. i love them all and this class is going to be amazing

[readalittle-writealittle]

Natural History Museum in London

[readalittle-writealittle]

Alright…..

The “and historians would say they were such good friends. No homo :))))” joke is real tired now.

[readalittle-writealittle]

crows have been documented holding ‘funerals’ for many years. however, researchers suggest that they may not be mourning; evidence indicates that crows may be examining the body & surrounding area for potential threats to the rest of the flock.

source: (x)

[readalittle-writealittle]

let me tell you about hopepunk.

grimdark says “we are all going to die. the universe is cold and empty.” hopepunk says “yes, and the greatest act of defiance against the dark is kindness.”

grimdark says “nothing can save us forever.” hopepunk says “something can always save us today.”

grimdark says “in a hundred years, we will all be dead and forgotten.” hopepunk says “yes, but here and now, we are alive.”

grimdark says “there is no hope. there is no mercy. there is no justice.” hopepunk says “but there is us.”

hopepunk says  “the universe has done all it can, and we are still alive.”

hopepunk is not about the daylight. it’s about the flame you light in the dark of the night. hopepunk is not about being unbroken. it is about taking the beating and staying on your feet. hopepunk is not idealism. hopepunk is the willful, unyielding defiance of cynicism.

[readalittle-writealittle]

from a distance, most things look beautiful

[readalittle-writealittle]

Bluets

[readalittle-writealittle]

30.10.21 // I really miss working in coffee shops. Really really badly.

But today’s the day everyone!! Graduation day! Obv I am going to the market this morning, as I do every Saturday. Then I think I’ll visit a coffee shop. And then off to my parents to watch the prerecorded YouTube video that they’re calling graduation.

Here’s to another covid grad!

IG: flatneedledistillery

[readalittle-writealittle]

why does nobody in midnight mass know what a vampire is??

[readalittle-writealittle]

If he doesn’t bring an Angel of the Lord back home to spread the Lord’s miracles and Revelations at midnight on Easter Sunday, all for a second chance with you, then is he really the one?

[readalittle-writealittle]

I will continue to call The Creature “Frankenstein” and no force in Heaven or Earth will impede that.

[readalittle-writealittle]

Mass deportations were wrong under Trump, and they are still wrong now. This is heartless. But somehow, many of the same people who were (rightfully) calling out Trump for his mass deportations are suddenly on mute now.

The Biden administration’s policy of mass deportations and telling non-European asylum seekers “do not come” doesn’t magically stop being racist just because a Democrat is doing it now.

Be consistent.

👉🏿 https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/haiti-deportations/index.html