ADD? No, Baby, I Have ASS*

      
I do not have ADD.

Yes, my house looks like a carnival, each room a different ride, and I am untidy much of the time, with extended bursts of cleaning frenzy when the clutter pervades. (You're nodding.) And yes, I have twenty projects begun and in various states of semi-completion. (Uh-huh.) And yes, I have several occupations, not counting motherhood and wife-ness, from house painter to college English teacher to mosaicist to graphic designer to--and this is the one most important to me--writer. (Can I get a witness from those career- and hobby-juggling moms and wives?) And yes, I have had trouble with my memory. (Where are your keys?)

But I do not have ADD. (Neither do you.)

Sometimes it seems that way on the surface, to those who really don't know me. My teaching style, for instance, is like links in a website. I rarely go from point A straight to point B without sidetracking to Q, P, and L first. But the sidetracks prove my point and illustrate my stories, and I always get back to B**. My non-linear style has a point. Eventually.

In the past week, I have spent one hundred hours niggling over the design of my blog. Of course, many ADD children can sit still for television and movies, I’m told. Parents and doctors say it's because of the number of camera cuts, as if the TV's own ADD is acting out for the kid. (My own daughter, neither hyper nor deficient, turns on the TV in the basement and rollerblades in circles for an hour.)

But c'mon. What most people see as ADD is simply a combination of creativity and multi-tasking. My grandmother played cards while cooking with six pots on her four-burner stove, and if she'd owned a portable phone, she'd have been talking on it at the same time. We were made to walk and chew gum and change diapers simultaneously. It's why we have two hands, two ears, two eyes. And if it means that we are sometimes deficient in less important things, like where we've placed our keys and whether we've taken our last dose of meds, it's because the other things we were doing at the time--screaming at the dog--required more concentration.

So the fact that I couldn't decide on a single paint color or one career, that I couldn’t remember whether I'd ordered water, is not a symptom of Attention Deficit Disorder. It's not even a sign of indecisiveness (a word whose symbol is that of the Libra). It is ASS, Attention Surplus Syndrome.

I can spend hours writing a story and not notice the time. I can become absorbed and engrossed in any task. That, my friends, is a sign of ASS (though, in the case of my blog, some have called it TMTOYH—Too Much Time On Your Hands). My brain can hold six story ideas, two poems, an invention, three lesson plans, and paint colors because I'm hyper-creative. That I am anal retentive can be seen in my sentence revisions, my focus on grammar, and my obsession with trifles, like the colors of the photo borders in my blog. They’re white now, but they'll likely be black tomorrow.

It may seem, at times, like you and I have too many irons in the fire. But we are skilled craftsman. We can give each the timely attention it requires, even if it means neglecting to pick our children up from the birthday party. We do not have ADD. We have ASS. Say it loud; we've ASS, and we're proud.

Unfortunately, some of us have far too much than we actually need. So we've got ASS and back.

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*This piece was originally entitled, “Barren Soil or Fertile Ground?” That's because it was originally about a surge of creativity at the onset of menopause. But I got, er, um, sidetracked.

**Unless, as has been the case lately, perimenopause interferes, and I forget why I sidetracked to Q, P, and L in the first place and have to ask a student.