Saturday, July 16, 2011

Slow acting ADD?

One year into my new job and I am comfortable. I’ve reached a level of knowledge that enables me to get through the day with few snags or challenges because I have seen it before. At eighteen months things begin to change. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the loss of a coworker. Maybe that lack of challenge is creeping in and I am bored. Maybe I have some kind of slow progressive ADD.  I like a steady pace but boredom is not what I am looking for. By two years into my job I am ready to leave. The fun is over and I want out. At this point I am so settled in it is difficult to envision me doing anything else. Six months goes by. Now at two and a half years I grow steadily angry with my condition. So I start looking for something new.
What does this say about me? Is such a thing as delayed ADD? (That’s what I call it)
I spent 7 years drifting through college, going one semester and not the next and years at part time student status. My major changed. First it was business because I wanted to open my own store but had no idea what I was going to sell. Then it was history, philosophy and finally religion, then back to history. I committed exactly two years and got the degree. Grad school hung on the horizon but I just spent two years committed to one discipline. I was thinking of religion again, but chose to write and work a job.
That job lasted four years. Two of which were exciting. The last two, though I had good times, was over all depressing. I gave up trying when the realization that it would take more effort and time then I was willing to put in. “This is not my career.” I kept telling myself. So I continued to write.
I’ve been casually writing now for some years. With multiple works published (Click here to see a few) I have achieved something. I haven’t quite categorized that success yet. I will say I have reached to two year mark in really trying to get my work out there. So now with no other job than to sit and write all those stories I struggled to get out while working a forty hour a week job and dealing with all of life’s others obstacles and I’ve barely written a thing.
I spend my time antiquing these days. Buying at auctions and trying to flip or quadruple what I buy. Studying catalogs and hitting up ebay to check going rates for 19th century hand written receipts or old toys still in the box. I write on occasion.
Two years from now I could be back in school. I could be running a small business. I could…well it doesn’t matter because I have slow acting A D D.