hyperfocus

I hate when I can feel a hyperfocus coming on.

Don’t get me wrong, the pure rush of dopamine that accompanies them is stellar. Gives me that “I can take over the world!” feeling like no other. That’s better than a shot of middle shelf whiskey (bottom is eew, top is not for shooting, only sipping, duh) or the tingly school girl feeling you get when someone you find attractive seems to have an interest in you.

Its the comedown that sucks.

I’d like to say it was because I no longer had said project to complete or self-imposed lesson to finish, but its usually because I just flat out lose interest. My home is a graveyard for orphaned hobbies and obsessions. Half-finished cross stitchings, recording equipment and various percussion instruments cast aside so I could start sewing a skirt that I’d get three-quarters of the way through before I decided to read about nothing but Vikings or sharks, boxes upon boxes of various jewellery making projects (it tends to resurface in different forms), stacks of books about the sciences behind modern medicine and decomposition, or little figurines of whatever pop culture bullshit holds my attention that week, blahblahblahblahblah the list is infinite. I envy people that are really into one thing and just go with it. I’d love to be an expert on some specific subject, but my attention span only permits the brief spattering of knowledge on whatever topic. Think Pee-Wee’s Playhouse; sure there’s something educational in each episode, but lets be real, its mostly just things that are fun to look at and LOTS of screaming.

So what is today’s obnoxiously distracting, time-wasting, generally useless to me in the long run obsession keeping me from doing productive and/or otherwise useful things? Assembling a decent Ellen Ripley cosplay. Is this something I need to do? Absolutely not. Am I gonna be her for Halloween? Nah. I already have like two or thirteen ideas lined up for that. So why am I, a 43 year old mother of a whole-ass adult obsessing over this?

Your guess is as good as mine.

And it can’t be just a copy, oh no! Its gotta be totally original because I always have this stupid little voice in my head telling me to step up my game and be impressive because a couple people expect some sort of creativity out of me. I can’t let them down! What would they think?? But I can’t get too far away from the original concept or I’ll look like a poseur or whatever.

I also obsess over tracing backwards throughout my existence to figure out the key moments that my quirks really jumped out. Because of that, I know that part of the reason that little voice exists is because of my freshman year of high school. My new art instructor informed me that he was told by my grade/middle school art teacher to “not accept second-class work from Gina.” He then pushed other students through to the advanced art class and left me behind to kick me in the ass. It worked, because not only did I move up to the coveted advanced class, they even “created” another level of drawing class for me (aka a fancy way to say independent study because I didn’t have a special curriculum). So yeah, nothing I let other people see is ever good enough for me. I can’t just be happy with whatever brain vomit makes it out onto a canvas or a screen.

Believe me, I am fully aware that I need to Adult and save money for bills and whatever general life thingies I have to deal with, but the hyperfocus impulses are always jumping out of their seats, hands waving trying to get my attention. The constant no-holds barred Monday Night Raw/Thunderdome cage match raging inside of me between my id, ego, and superego. Those idiots just cannot get along. Unfortunately the id seems to be wearing the championship belt as it jumps from the ropes with a metal folding chair to beat the shit out of the other two. All impulse, allllll the time, baby. Wheeeeeeee. The Master Baja Blaster duo taken out by Mad Maxine Rockatansky. 24/7, 7 days a week, a constant roadblock keeping me from just being a responsible human.

Its fucking exhausting.

Take all these words for example; it was just going to be a three sentence long throwaway stupid Facebook status, but noooooooooo! My brain wouldn’t shut up long enough to just post and go so now I have a whole ramble about nothing that of course I will have to edit 34 times and illustrate and put up on my website so I don’t feel like my random hurricane of words is wasted even if no one reads it. All this just because I wanted to make fun of myself for wanting to dress like Sigourney Weaver for my own amusement.

TL;DR Version: Gina watched Aliens again the other day and evidently forgot to take her Adderall so now she’s wasting time instead of mopping the damn floor.