Monday, Jun. 10, 2019 - 4:23 p.m.

Today there was major work done on the AC at the in-laws’, which I am grateful for since we are staying in one of the no AC rooms, but it meant I didn’t get much time to work out this morning and have basically had to be downstairs child wrangling and listening to people say things to me all day and it’s almost 4:30 and I can’t take much more.

I had basically the whole day yesterday and J needed to work on stuff today and I don’t begrudge him that at all. But there’s this type of desperation I feel, a sense of needing a reset, like I’m up against an invisible wall of some sort and when I hit it I can’t emote or converse or do anything really.

J’s mom has had shoulder surgery and her feet are unsteady and she wobbles around doing thing after thing after thing and you have to do all the things before you can rest and if you don’t get the things done you don’t rest and that is that. I remember being flummoxed by that when we got married. There was just so much to do and she regarded none of it as optional. The only thing (for all of us under her command) that was optional was eating and sleeping. She goes from this to that, making lists and clearing and tidying the messes the same day they occur and errand after errand after errand. Conversing while cooking, while the television is on. Getting quietly resentful because her idea of cleaning up the kitchen in a timely way is not the same idea as my idea of cleaning the kitchen in a timely way.

Ah, to be a high-functioning neurotypical.

And to have no framework for understanding how a healthy young(ish) woman can’t seem to do more than one small thing a day.

But here I am, rocking and zoning out and trying to stay awake as my brain tells me it needs to reset, it can’t take any more. And I can do things I am told to do but I can’t plan, I can’t do more than try to maintain and think about my favorite subjects. It’s like swimming against the tide.

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