We are so fucking back.

I’m here and it is happening.

A few weeks ago, I wrote “weeknotes #40” and felt a pang of glee, then something in me kinda gave up, and I closed the window, and closed my laptop. I was not ready to be “so back”.

In my company’s Slack workspace, we have a channel called #the-loud-corner, the name originating from a corner of our old two-storey office in the heart of Sydney city, where a group of us worked. It was about two—or two-and-a-half—teams of people seated in roughly the same area, and we gained a reputation of being loud, largely because some of us had very audible laughs that could be heard from the opposite corner of the office. We were loud often on purpose, and banter was often unfiltered and unapologetic.

One of my coworkers posted the following graphic in that channel (I don’t know the source, unfortunately, but it seems to be a meme) which I found incredibly amusing and have kept referring back to, due to its accuracy in many situations. Needless to say, my mood is moderately pleasant on the x-axis and my energy is moderately high on the y-axis, and I’m ready to write my first goddamn weeknote in over 18 months.

I ain’t gonna pretend like nothing’s happened. 🫡 It’s been some time since I have written one of these posts and I freaking miss it. I do like writing posts that are focused and on a certain topic, but sometimes I get waves of I’ll write whatever I fucking want, thanks.

I’m not gonna try and answer the question of what’s been happening since my last weeknote. Blogs just don’t work that way; this isn’t a linear journey and this blog is always morphing into whatever I want it to be. So probably don’t go and read that last weeknote unless you’re curious as to what I happened to be doing the last time I wrote a post in this style.

To answer what you were wondering: I was practicing on my skateboard (which I’ve not gone on in a while; let’s talk about that another time) and avoiding calling personal projects “work”.

On Saturday I had a spontaneous catch-up and hangout with my friend Mitch, after Nick decided last-minute to join some coworkers for lunch, and I decided to see if he was free. The potential loneliness was eating me alive! OK, I’m not extroverted, but after having a slog of a work week (mostly the latter half of the week) and feeling down in the dumps on Friday night about some gnarly work-related stuff, I needed some distraction from my thoughts. Bundle a much needed distraction with valuable time with people I like (aka friends) and opportunities to appreciate people, and my cup is full. 🫶🏻 Mitch and I chatted over coffee, then had some quiet time in the library, and then had bubble tea.

I’m conscious of “making ADHD my entire personality” post-diagnosis, especially since I’ve heard many that newly-diagnosed ADHDers learn and understanding themselves better after diagnosis, but are then accused of talking non-stop about their ADHD. I’m tired of masking and hiding my true feelings to appear acceptable to others, though, so I’m slowly relaxing some of my behaviours that take a lot of mental energy. I also want to write about a couple of things I’ve been doing to improve my symptoms and the things I’ve learned about myself.

I already briefly explained one in my previous post—that creating deadlines for myself is important to really help me get tasks done. In a similar vein, I’ve also recognised the importance of switching between different types of tasks so that I don’t overwhelm myself and go down the path of overworking myself trying to finish an individual task. In my job, I have a variety of task types. Some are easy and repetitive, and don’t require too much thought, but they are not very stimulating. Some are more hands-on and feel like I’m solving a big coding problem, but when I work for too long, I get mentally exhausted. There are boring admin-like or organisational tasks, cleanup tasks, and research or investigation-related tasks. Allowing myself to change between tasks actually benefits my focus because I need those small brain breaks to be able to do the work efficiently. It is just very difficult for me to remain focused on a single task for too long a period of time.

I’m a serial complainer, and unfortunately it took me a long time before I realised that it was actually a problem. I was frequently told by my parents that I was a whiner, and Nick also told me that I was pretty awful at waiting in queues. Practically insufferable. Turns out I say a lot of things out loud when I think I’m just keeping my complaints to myself. 🫠 I am conscious of dumping this on other people, so I’ve tried to frame it more as a need to vent quickly and move on, which is helpful when I’m in a safe conversation space with a close friend. Announcing that I need to let off some steam helps me view the thing I’m complaining about as something I can work through, rather than a show-stopping obstacle.

We had high tea yesterday for Nick’s grandma’s birthday. I didn’t take many photos.

High tea is a pretty fancy sounding thing, but I know that it can often be a bit of a “glorified tea” for some. I get it, I get it. They certainly vary in quality, and I am definitely there for the tea, which can be hit or miss—I’m a tea snob, after all—but I like the way that it sets a fancy and invites people together to enjoy a bunch of nibbles and drinks. Sometimes that’s just what you need for the occasion.