How Do You Know? (And What if You Never Will?)
How do I know if I have ADHD or just a zest for life and desire to learn everything there is to know about bees but also screenwriting but also the eight limbs of yoga?
Is it ADHD or is it subconscious task avoidance if I cannot organize and sustain a daily routine, but I can retain and recall fun facts I learned from my middle school planner? (Did you know rats can’t throw up and that’s why poison is used to eradicate them? How awful! But interesting!)
How do I know if it’s anxiety or my “gut feeling,” which I should trust?
How do I know if I’m a grouch who doesn’t like to try new things or if it’s perfectly reasonable to not care about how different bourbons taste different (even though this is a lie and also they are all gross?)
How do I know if I’m an introvert or extrovert or ambivert since whether or not I want to people depends on my mood, whether I like the way my hair looks, if I am constipated or dehydrated or hungry, if someone yelled at me anytime between 30 minutes and 7 days ago, what phase it is in my cycle, the weather and also whether or not I have an outfit I like that is appropriate for that weather?
How does anyone know anything, when we’ve essentially made it all up in order to have the allusion of knowing?
I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder when I was like, born, and I very much have ADHD (emphasis on the H), except that I don’t know for sure because the diagnostic process took too long so I moved onto the next thing on my to-do list because impulsivity and impatience and distractability and desire for novelty and I wonder if there’s a name for that?
Some days I’m anxious and introverted and some days I’m the life of the party, meaning I’ll arrive exactly on time and chat the ears off your guests then run myself into such a tizzy helping you endlessly refresh the mini quiches that I’ll fall asleep in the pile of coats in the guest room at 9:13 PM.
Some days I absolutely will not try that new food that smells like vinegar and has a French name I feel too self conscious to pronounce, and on other days, too, because vinegar is very bad.
I also have the genetic mutation, confirmed by 23 and Me, that makes cilantro taste like “soap,” but really like “feet,” so if you’re asking whether I’m a good time at a restaurant, the answer is yes, especially since I forgot to mention my various allergies. Some days I will snag one of the French fries off your plate even if the fryer that fries the fries also fries the shrimps because I’m feeling brave, and other days I will wear my Epipen around my neck as a chic statement piece necklace because I woke up with a sense of doom I cannot specifically place.
I wake up each morning and try to roll with it, whatever “it” is or what it’s called.
I notice my feelings (Huh, I feel like getting in a glaring match with an SUV parked poorly in the hopes that maybe its owner feels a shame current through the space-time continuum), then I inhale and exhale and do my day as evolved as I can. I rinse and repeat this gymnastics with my thoughts and body feelings until death do us part.
No matter how I wake up or how the day turns out, I try to remember that I’m me in all forms, in all funks, on all hair days.
Instead of pursuing answers, I try to pursue a hot coffee and a walk around the block and a phone call with my sister.
Because the truth is, I may never know.
But I will know everything there is to know about the social structure of the antelope community after passing a heard on a road trip through Kansas before you have a chance to say, “Look, another cow,” and truth be told that is plenty enough for me.
Yours in love and in not knowing,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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