Attention

A few weeks ago, I walked into Patrick's office to make an announcement:

"Merlin Mann is my new internet boyfriend."

Patrick shrugged. Last month it was this guy. The month before that it was someone else. It's always someone. Leapfrog in reverse for fifteen years and you go all the way back to Patrick, my first.

I can't ever tell if the shrug means "whatever," or "this too shall pass," or "good luck to that poor bastard." I think all of the above.

I was infatuated with Merlin Mann at that particular moment (yes, I've already moved on) after stumbling on his site 43 Folders, where he writes about attention management, an area in which I can always use more help.

Recently, I fell into a google rabbit hole that led me to take an online diagnostic test for adult Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.

I didn't just test for some of the symptoms, some of the time. My clicks clustered around "all the time," "usually," and "frequently." I was staggered.

"I have adult ADHD," I announced to Patrick (this is more or less the rhythm of our days: me walking into his office to make a dramatic pronouncement, him shrugging). He shrugged.

"And this is news to you?"

Well, you think in twelve years, he would have said something.

Of course, I'm not going to definitively self-diagnose myself with anything based on a visit with Dr. Google. I don't believe my issues are so much pathology as they are personality. Still, it was strangely comforting to read through a list of areas in which adults with attention challenges frequently run into problems, and identify so much with it. And really satisfying to read the list of management strategies and see that I've already figured lots of this stuff out. Like the Zen of 3X5 index cards.

List making, breaking down big projects into small tasks, using a calendar, remembering to look at my calendar, making the way my mind works work for me: I know all these things. But then I forget them sometimes, and that's why I was so happy to come across Merlin.

I really need all the help I can get right now.

Because this person I dreamed up? Has appeared. If I were any happier, we'd be registered at Tiffany's.

This dream agent didn't say she'd take me on only after I'd figured out all the hard stuff by myself. She didn't hand me the ACME Formula for a Book Proposal and ask me to let her know when I'd filled in the blanks. She's not asking me to spend the next several months of my life writing about what I'm going to write about and pretending I'm in an expert in market research.

"Just write," she told me.

Just write.

She and the universe are going to take care of the rest.

Who knows what will happen? Someone will read what I've written and want to publish it or they won't. People will want to buy it or they won't. I know this much: worrying about the outcome does not fit on today's 3X5 list.

Writing the next five hundred words does.

So if the posting is a little light around here over the next while, I hope you'll understand why. And as deeply as I believe that this project will unfold exactly as it should, a few crossed fingers (novenas, burnt offerings, divine collective bargaining agreements or whatever else you've got) couldn't hurt a thing.