Nine ways to Sunday...

I set a goal this weekend of finally getting to my long-over due Christmas thank you notes and a few note cards.  I wanted them out in the mail by Monday morning.  Sixteen missives latter, I was finished.  But only then did I learn that my losing of the days meant that I failed to realize the mail wasn't coming today. It's a holiday.

I talk to myself quite a bit.  Both out and about and alone.  I talk myself through what I am doing or what I need to do. I talk to myself trying to figure out the things that puzzle me.  Working out the refill information on all my prescriptions (I added four more to my list) was as difficult as any learning I ever did in graduate school.  That is not, at all, a hyperbole.

Looking at the bottle, I had to figure out how many refills there were by the number of pills in the monthly dose and the number left on the prescription.  I counted months on a calendar and recounted and then counted again.  I used my fingers and hash marks and even pretzels twists.  Yes, pretzels twists.  I think the list is right, but I am not sure.

It was like measuring.
These days, with my brain, measuring is like trying to read Greek.
Or climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Mostly, I feel like Sisyphus.

A child of the energy crisis, I was trained at a tender age to not leave lights on unnecessarily.  Since becoming restricted to just a limited income, I have honed that skill to a fine level.  Actually, I am probably overly proud of how tight my electricity use has become, how I've shaved off money from my monthly bills.  But there are some things I do that are the very opposite of conservation.  I do them because I need them to help me.

A while ago, I turned off all the alarms on my phone.  I was definitely railing against the need for them.  I went an entire day without taking my medications and failed to remember.  I actually failed to remember to do any of the things the alarms tell me to do.  It is really difficult for me to try and re-trace any of my movements, and if I haven't entered my food in the FitBit app the day I ate it, I have to sniff through the mason jars in the dishwasher and try to figure out what was in them to see if it is in the app yet.

All that is to say, because I struggle with the rather effervescent nature of my memory, the way I do things, the patterns I have, are there because I need them to be.  One of those of those patterns really bothers people when they are around me.  And when I try to explain why I do it, the need is dismissed.  "Well, you don't need to while I'm here."

I want to scream back, "But what about after you leave!?!"
But I don't.

I need to do the things the way that I do so that I will get them done.  By that I mean, if you are visiting me for a week and wish for me to stop they way I do things, your visit can break the pattern that helps me when you are gone.  And then, really, your help has only hurt me.

What egregiously wasteful electricity act do I regularly commit?  When I am getting something out of the refrigerator to add to a recipe, I leave the refrigerator door open to remind myself to put the refrigerated item back so that it doesn't spoil.  Pour/slice/scoop and return.  When folk are with me, they are constantly shutting the door that I leave open, which breaks my pattern of "helps" to help me remain independent.  Part of that is not wasting food so as to better manages my resources left over after paying for my prescriptions.

If I try to wait until the food is all prepared to put back the perishables, I often forget.  Or I will miss something sitting right in front of me on the counter.  For example, I will spot the olive oil, then put it back.  Since I put something in the cupboard, then I stop thinking about perishables and move on to non-perishables.  I just don't remember things.  Such as putting a plate on the floor for Amos to pre-clean, then stepping on it as I get up to tend to my personal business.

I collect the laundry the same way:  strip the bed, pile the bedding into the basket, carry the basket to the hallway, collect the toweling from the bathroom, pile it atop the basket, carry the basket to the kitchen and set it on the counter.  Fetch the towel from the parlor and then, last, the towel from the kitchen.  If I do not pause to set the basket on the kitchen counter, thinking that I'll get the hand towels, I won't. I won't remember them when I come back up from the basement.  If I don't set a timer for the wash cycle, I will forget I am doing laundry.

I hate how much I forget.

Back in the dark ages, when I was taking my first teaching classes in college, I learned about scaffolding, about building a support structure as you teach.  Part of that scaffolding is the pattern of your teaching.  Back then, we were instructed to spiral teach.  If you think about the image of a spiral, each turn dips back down on the one before it before moving forward.  Okay, so I stink at describing visual imagery.  But if you just go draw a spiral, you will see what I mean.

That really is the point of elementary school (and junior high).  At least it used to be.  I mean, you have American History three times between 1st and 12th grade.  The same with other subjects.  As students learn to read and write, to think critically and to study, the spiral through the material in their lessons from grade to grade.  The idea is that by high school the students are near independent scholars who then begin to rehearse independent study in preparation for college, trade school, military service, employment, etc.  The idea is (or perhaps was) that scholarly independence is gained by graduation.

But I digressed.

The alarms and reminders and signs and lists and such are my scaffolding and spirals.  The patterns in doing things the way that I do them exist so that I can best ensure that I don't miss things, forget things.  I need the patterns.  Lots of them.  For each thing that I need to remember, I have to come up with nine ways to Sunday to help myself.  So,  I really, really, really wish others were not so critical or dismissive of them.

Or shut the refrigerator door when I want it left open.