Focus On the Task At Hand

Just focus on the task at hand.
Just focus on the task at hand.

This is what I keep repeating to myself.

My brain is nonstop.  All the time.  It never shuts up.  Sometimes I can ignore it long enough to do things like, I dunno, FOCUS on things I have to get done.  Things like schoolwork, fulfilling obligatory adult-related responsibilities like paying bills, cleaning the house, etc.

But some days?
Some days my brain is just too loud and I want to literally stab myself in the head with an ice pick.  Repeatedly.  Until it finally shuts up.

Today is one of those days.
I woke up - albeit tired - but ready to face the day and tackle school straightaway.  But then I moved from the bedroom to the kitchen, and in that short amount of time period, my brain decided to take me on a little detour from feeling ready to face the (virtual) world, to feeling like I just want to die.  Suicidal ideation aside, when my brain gets overwhelmed and it is working 273% against me, I just want to shut down.  Turn all the noise off.  Die.

Why did I have to start thinking about my childhood?
Why did I have to start thinking about all the things my parents did wrong, even though they thought they were doing what was best for me at the time?
Why did I have to start thinking about the way that I was raised and the way my parents treated me now plays into who I am as an individual, and how I perceive God, and how generally fucked up I am because of it?
Why did I have to start - yet again - composing a letter in my head, one that I will most likely not write, much less send to my parents, explaining to them the complex relationship (or lack thereof) I have with them and why it's this way?

And then I responded to someone on a social media platform, giving them a link that may have contradicted something they posted, hoping to shed a little light on the topic, only to have someone else who definitely was not a part of the conversation, decide to chime in.  And while yes, it's free world, dude, I did not ask you to join this conversation, nor did I ask you about your opinion, and that just led me to feel everything ranging from irritation to feeling betrayed to pissed off.

And that was all in the time span of, oh, probably about a half hour.

Now I am feeling exhausted.
Despite my schedule having only changed in the fact that I now cannot go to the gym to work out (otherwise, my life is completely unaffected by this mass chaos), I am not getting enough sleep.  I am in bed by 5 am and awake around 1 or 2 pm these days.  You'd think if I just went to bed at a normal time like the old person that I am, I'd be able to sleep in until I felt rested, not having to set some dumbass alarm to wake me so I don't waste the day away.

But, as I so happily realised the other day, I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever feel rested until I'm...well, let's be real, until I'm dead.
Even if I don't have school to make me wake up - not rested - in order to get that done, I have other things to do.  Like organise our place.  Clean it up.  Maintain it.  There will forever be obligations and responsibilities and other things to do and get done because that's what comes with life and being an adult or just even being a living, breathing human.  Even if I retire someday, there will still be things that will need to be done, and with the weight of all that responsibility weighing me down, there are forever small filing cabinets in the back of my mind, filled and organised of things that need to get done, when they need to get done, when I need to do them AGAIN, and so on and so forth. 

It's exhausting just thinking about it.


But see?  Look, I didn't even maintain the focus of why I started writing this.

My brain is on 24/7.  It never stops.  Sometimes I start to think about ALL THE THINGS I have to do and get done, even things far into the future, but the pressure of needing to get them done (eventually) feels very much like they have to get done RIGHT NOW and then I start to sink under all this invisible pressure and my brain feels like it's going to burst.

So I have to remind myself to take care of things one at a time.

Just focus on the task at hand.

What should I get done first?
What's most pressing?
What has top priority?
If I think this one thing absolutely has to get done, does it really?  Or can I give myself a little grace and let it slide, so that I can get something else done, something that may have more precedence?

Just focus on the task at hand.

Right now I am exhausted and just want to sleep forever.
I am exhausted from not getting enough sleep; but also because my overactive brain has made me extraordinarily tired.
I am tired because I'm sad.  My best friend and the love of my life has only been gone for a few weeks, which feels like years.  But we haven't even made a dent in how long he'll be gone.
I am tired because I'm constantly concerned for his safety and well-being.  Not hearing from him regularly adds to my worry and the anxiety I feel over wanting him safe.
I am tired because I have school work, and one class that I've had to take over again, because the teacher the first time around was trash, but turns out the material in general is just trash, but that trash teacher didn't help at all.  Now I have a better teacher, but am essentially still learning nothing because of awful material resources, and I'm really just recycling my work from the previous class.
I am tired because of the wide range of emotions I've felt today, and how they still are going, and how I can't just not feel, because going numb takes even more energy, which makes absolutely no sense.

Just focus on the task at hand.

It's easy to forget this.
It's such a helpful piece of advice that I discovered for myself, but I forget it so easily.
And then days like today happen and my brain is ping-ponging all over the place and I have to keep telling myself over and over and over again, hoping it'll stick long enough for me to...

just focus on the task at hand.


I'm trying.
Hopefully typing all this word vomit will help me have a little more focus.  Enough to at least complete a little schoolwork.
I still want to die.  Much more today than usual.  But I need to push through it.  Why?  Mainly...because I honestly don't know anything else.  (But we won't go into that right now.)


Remember.
Just focus on the task at hand.