Preamble
I am walking through the Pavilion Gardens and see the pigeon man. He strokes the pigeons who sit on his arm. I like to smile at him as I pass, and sometimes he smells a bit so I breathe through my mouth, and that’s okay. A lady smiles to herself, no earphones, no phone in hand. As if she has a happy secret. Someone along the opposite pavement from me walks very slowly. They’re wearing a jumper of the brightest pink you can imagine. “I wonder if this jumper will give me more energy”, perhaps they thought. The side of a bus says that HIV isn’t scary anymore. Someone I know once told me they have HIV, and I often worry about how I responded. Did I say something supportive? I don’t remember anymore. I wonder if they do.
These things happened this week
- Made a difficult decision. Nothing will come of it for a couple of months, so that’ll continue to take up maybe half my daily spoons
- I’ve barely left the house lately
- Emma’s parents stayed one night. They’re pretty chill so I didn’t have to mask that much
- It was our friend’s daughter’s 2nd birthday and a few of us had a little tea party with her to celebrate. It was very sweet
Bonus: An evening in the life of an AuDHDer[Jump to footnote 1] in manic mode
- Take a surprise video call with a doctor. Wasn’t expecting this! Turns out you booked it earlier today but forgot to put it in your calendar
- Go to a solar panel meet-up because it sounded good
- Sign up to a not-cheap thing that you didn’t know existed 30 mins ago
- Don’t worry, you hyper-focussed on researching it for 30 mins and got a tiny discount off the year subscription!
- Attempt to book a ticket for an event in the summer. Try again! It timed out because you started doing something else mid-checkout and forgot
- Forget that you’re washing up while you’re actually washing up, because your cat indicated that he wanted a drink from the washing up bowl before you put the washing liquid in
- Eventually wash up, apologising to the chopping board for making it sad
- Use a plunger to unblock a sink and tell your partner about how amazing plungers are. Plungers are so amazing
- The evening before: I’m so tired how am I alive
Overheard through the days
- “The obnoxiously handsome one, that’s Jack”
Yours,Leaf
Footnotes
- AuDHD = Autism + ADHD. Over 50% of autistics also have ADHD! It’s fun because you’re kind-of like a walking[Jump to footnote 2] contradiction Jump to source of footnote 1
- (Where available) Jump to source of footnote 2