Take the win
learning to take a breath to acknowledge successes no matter how big or small (before nitpicking or minimizing them to insignificance)
So I finished the first legible draft of my researched memoir in progress, on my birthday! The thing I told you I was focusing on in January and have continued to do so until now. The reason I have only been posting once a month if that. This was my goal for the year, and I managed to do it by mid-June.
Part of me is very proud and happy, the quiet part of me. Another part of me though— instead of taking a breath to acknowledge this accomplishment and how long it took (since 2019) and with the headwinds (Long COVID that landed me in the ER and then eventually on disability and shifting focus and restarting multiple times after discovering I was autistic, and my mother’s illnesses and my beloved cat Ugo as well)—spent my birthday formatting it so I could send off to beta readers so they would have time to read it before I go back to Scotland in July.
I didn’t even take a beat.
I am now taking said beat, because I crashed and crashed hard. Part of it is because I got a cold when I returned and have been slammed with Long COVID brain fog and fatigue, but part of it was that I was hell bent on finishing the draft.
My birthday was spent, after formatting the chapters into one document (see above), in bed unable to move—John and I ordered food in to celebrate.
I have been crawling my way out of that quicksand since, and each day, I remind myself: take the win.
Then the nattering voices start yammering about how obviously the beta readers will hate it, and I’ll have to start all over again and it’ll take another 7 years and I don’t even know if I can do that…and then I take a breath again.
Long enough for a calm inner voice to say: take the win.
Fortunately, I had a good writer friend who volunteered to read each chapter along the way and gave me good feedback, so I know it isn’t a steaming pile of shit, but the anxiety is there ready to take over at any moment…
Until again, I breathe, pause, and the calm voice reminds me: take the win.
I am now having to see how hard that has been for me historically and still is now. I’m so afraid to acknowledge I’ve accomplished anything. Ever. Even when objectively I have.
There are reasons for this of course, and I’m too damn tired to explain all that to you, but if you either had the kind of childhood I did and/or grew up neurodivergent without knowing it so were always in the wrong no matter what you did, like, ever…and there was nothing you could do to create the sense of belonging or ease or care you wanted in the world, no matter how many accomplishments and accolades or whatever…you know what I mean.
We also live in a culture that feeds off this level of insecurity and futility and profits off it, so there’s that, too.
So what I’ve done right this time: built in a Whole Month to just rest.
Rest?!
What the fuck is That?
Yeah, if you’re like me someone telling you to rest sounds like someone challenging you to a test you will fail.
And I have Long COVID.
badahdabum…drum roll, etc…laugh cry emoji and all like that.
But again, the small inner voice whispers: take the win.
And that doesn’t even mean just the book—though that’s a lot—but also the fact I built in this rest time, even if some days I end up meaninglessly scrolling on my phone while telling myself I should be doing Something Meaningful or bemoaning the fact that because I still have to take COVID precautions I can’t just prance up to Kripalu and rest in a Meaningful way because I could get sick if I did that…and then I bemoan my fate as someone who can’t be in the world and I’m so isolated and and and…
I breathe long enough to hear: take the win.
You are here, you are alive, you did A Lot even with Long COVID.
You even went downtown and read an excerpt of your cut up of autistic authors as part of the slips slips launch:
Your first time Out as an autistic person writing about autism in your old theater community, and finding out in that process…um wow, the autistic masking isn’t even available to me anymore. The irony being keeping on my physical mask to protect myself was more unmasked than if I had taken it off to somehow seem more “normal.”
When I read, someone else besides the dancing seal emerged. Someone else started reading, a more unmasked me, who’s never really been out in public in mixed company, who’s mostly only shown up with other autistic people. Like here in this presentation I did for CASY back in November about autistic syntax:
But the not masking while performing live in front of people from what almost seems like a prior life felt like a profound shift, enough so I wrote about it in the last chapter of the memoir. And yes, I did take the win.
I think it’s so new because taking the win is part of integration isn’t it? And integration is the step I found myself skipping in yoga teacher training. I could do all the assignments, and learned to teach a good class—even though that process was painful—when it was done, I thought, great OK. I’m a yoga teacher. But, I really needed more time both in the classes themselves and with myself.
I never had that growing up and never gave it to myself as an adult. It’s still incredibly hard but the combo of knowing I’m autistic and being able to name autistic burnout and Long COVID crashes has finally forced my hand.
I can’t keep skipping the steps.
The gift inside the shit sandwich of Long COVID is this: learning to take the time to integrate each step. I am forced into pacing, which means breathing between tasks, sitting doing nothing else.
Time for the breath. For the pause to take the win…
Whether it’s: hey I could take a walk today! Or wow I could work on my book today! Or wow, I’m not bedridden today! Or whatever…I am beginning to acknowledge this.
I’m drafting this post while very tired because I had a hard time sleeping last night, this happens a lot. I will wake up in the middle of the night and go pee and then the anxiety Swirl will kick in and then and then and then…
And yes I use all the tools, the yoga breathing, the polyvagal toning and all the things…and eventually I can usually get back to sleep, and even if in the end I only get a few hours of sleep in total that night…yes…I take the win.
(And naps.)
I wondered if I should even attempt to draft this post while this tired, shouldn’t I wait for a more rested time?
Maybe..but here it is…for better or worse—and one of the things I have wanted to challenge myself to do is not be So precious about these posts—you can see perhaps a more raw version of me, and here ya go.
And if you finished this post, I am grateful for your attention and time, and I hope you got something of value from it and that you take the win…
If you woke up today, had a meal, enjoyed the light between the clouds, called a friend or heard from one, snuggled your pet or human, or wrote or created something or had a thought that made you happier or clearer, found pleasure in crip time, or found a way to begin to love yourself just as you are…take the win.
New Neurodivergent-Friendly Writing Workshop this fall!
Since I have completed a draft of the book and will be working on revisions for the remainder of the year, I’m going to be offering live (online) writing workshops again beginning in October.
My regular Tuesday evening workshop is full up already, but I will be leading another one on Tuesday afternoons from 2-4pm Eastern called Intuitive Processing, which is a term I coined for a way of both working with craft tools while also listening to and taking guidance from those quieter, internal voices that might need to upturn the conventional apple cart to be heard. If you watch my CASY presentation from last November, you will get an idea of what that looks like for me as an autistic person. Speaking of which, the workshop will be a neurodivergent-friendly, generative workshop with suggested prompts for both writing and editing with time for sharing at the end. All neurotypes are welcome, so you don’t need to be neurodivergent to participate—what I mean by ND-friendly is that there will be a capacious idea of what writing is and can be and an understanding of the challenges some folks can face working with words in more conventional ways. This workshop will be good for anyone who either wants to jump start a new writing project or breathe some new life into a piece of pre-existing writing that perhaps could use some juice to keep it going or get unstuck. To see more about me as a writer and for testimonials for workshops, etc., you can check out my website The Unadapted Ones. I keep my workshops pretty small, so if you are interested, get in touch. This won’t start until October, but I’ve had workshops fill up quickly in the past, so want to give my subscribers here a head start if they’re interested.
If you are a paid subscriber, you will get a discount and have access to silent write spaces on Zoom in between workshop session. Speaking of which, the silent write space is still running right now for paid subscribers, so if you need help finding that link, feel free to get in touch.