Beowulf, Knitting, and ADHD

OKay, this is weird–it’s only happened to me a couple of times.

It’s what I call “complete blankout” and it’s the reason that, not once but TWICE during college, I sat through an entire conversation in which someone broke up with me and still imagined that we were together. (Fortunately, not much time had been invested in these relationships, because THAT would have been much more embarrassing.)

It defines moments with my parents when they were telling me things they felt were VERY IMPORTANT and I couldn’t actually remember the conversation.

It’s a strange moment– a moment in which someone may be asking you a question or stating something, and you find your attention is just ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY elsewhere. Maybe it’s on what you had for breakfast. Maybe it’s on the knitting–which is usually your attention FOCUSER, but has now become the SOLE FOCUS of your attention.

Maybe it’s on the fact that you really didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, and it might be a good idea to fine tune that WIP you’ve been working on.

My kid’s ADHD specialist told me that this happened when a kid with ADHD was under a great deal of stress–and suddenly, those breakups I don’t remember made SO much more sense. It’s the traffic cop in our head that filters our priorities–suddenly, he’s not just on a doughnut break, he’s OUT OF THE FRICKIN’ COUNTRY SPENDING EMBEZZLED MILLIONS ON GANJA AND HOOKERS! And when he’s flown the frickin’ coop, it doesn’t matter what your attention is ON, what matters is that it is OFF what it should be on, and what it SHOULD be on is critical to your life and well being.

In this case, I think the knitting saved me. Suddenly I remembered that I only got to play with the knitting because of the claim that it kept me focused. If that was a lie, then I would no longer get to play with the knitting, and that threat alone was enough to put my fingers in motion and make me listen to the important shit going down.

I mean, you all know I knit a little every day, but I’m not NEARLY as productive as I used to be–but still. A little. Every day.

Damn, it’s funny how much a little every day can mean to us, isn’t it?

Anyway–so thereyago, it’s a little vague, but it is the absolutely true story of HOW KNITTING SAVED MY ASS. Believe it is true.

So, true to the heroic nature of the Great Fiber Art, I got home and found (Bless you, Chris!) the link to These Socks in my mailbox.

They are perfect. The are socks for a warrior. I may very well buy the pattern, not because I’m gonna commit to knitting them, but because if knitting is going to SAVE YOUR ASS, then maybe it needs a more heroic form to take. Besides. I want that frickin’ picture of that awesome goddamned sock on my wall, you think?

*nods head* Yeah, I think. I may be knitting a shawl out of Lion Brand Homespun (Pity. Me.) but, dammit, I’m gonna have a framed 8×10 of some real goddamned knitting on my wall. Because knitting makes heroes of housewives sometimes–sweartadog it does.