Distractibility

I’ve written on here before about my difficulty with focus. Toward the end of my chemo infusions and immediately afterward, I couldn’t get my brain to attend to any one idea or situation for more than 5 minutes or so. It would bounce aimlessly from one idea to the next, which ironically made for some interesting writing, though it also made life difficult in many other ways.

However, it’s not just the lasting side effects of chemo brain, but it’s also a trait that, to some extent, stems from who I am as a person and who I am as an employee. At my previous teaching job, I trained myself to jump between 20-25 different classes in an average year, a hectic feat that made many other teachers shake their heads: “That’s wayyyy too many classes,” they would moan. I’d nod and shrug, sort of laughing it off. “I know, I know, but at least I’m never bored.”

I do like variety and movement and change. I could never work a regular 9-5 job or be happy in a traditional office environment; that’s just not my style. One of my favorite jobs that I had throughout high school and college (and as a side-gig on weekends during my first year as a teacher) was as a housekeeper. I was actually a housekeeper for over 8 years, first at a few resorts in my hometown and, later, at a large hotel chain a few blocks from the university I attended. The best part of my housekeeping jobs was the freedom. Yes, I had a list of certain rooms I had to clean and certain tasks I had to complete in each room, but I could also complete those tasks in my own order or style to make them more efficient. I could have the TV or radio on in the background– or bring my own music and headphones. I could often pick the order of rooms I cleaned or when I’d take my breaks. I could create my own personal touches, like a little note left on the door, or a towel folded into the shape of a swan (admittedly, mine always looked more like a duck), or a squirt of a piney room freshener.

Plus, you never knew what each room would be like, which was kind of exciting in a weird way. For instance, there might be the pleasant and happy surprises, like a $10 tip (okay, maybe that sounds like nothing to these Gen Z kids, but that was an absolute fortune to a Millennial making $8.25/hour in 2010) or a room where the people didn’t use the second bed and you could carve out a little extra time for the next unfortunate surprise, like the room where someone shattered the glass lamp all over the carpet or put a rotting catfish in the pillowcase (yes, both of these happened to me). Whatever the situation, my housekeeping jobs contained an element of unpredictability that I thrived on.

Teaching is similar. I can walk into a room to teach the same course to three different groups of students, but each lesson will be different: students will ask different questions, there will be a different atmosphere depending on the mix of students, I will think of new ideas or examples, etc. I love it! However, I have wondered lately about my thrill in the lack of consistency and overall inability to strongly focus my attention.

My oldest was diagnosed with ADHD last year, and, while we have seen the ways we can help him with medication and different strategies at school and home, it has made me wonder if I didn’t grow up with undiagnosed ADHD myself. Apparently, it manifests differently in girls than boys, and girls will be distracted more quietly. As a kid, I would always daydream and draw on my paper; my notebooks would often look (and still do look) really sloppy to me– like a mismatch of cursive and handwritten words, squiggles, notes and dashes on different parts of the page– and I wouldn’t be able to sit still for more than a few minutes. I still switch positions every two minutes or so when writing, grading, or teaching; I’m aware of just how squirmy I am during work meetings, having seen myself captured in the Zoom screen for years now; I just cannot sit still. However, I’m also a soft-spoken person and an excellent listener (not to brag; it’s just a necessary part of my job as a teacher and as a mom), which would seem contradictory.

In many ways, I fight diagnoses of any type. Having dealt with the label of “cancer patient”, I know how tough it can be to have yourself covered in a label of any sort, and so I’ve been very aware of how I talk with my son about these things. “Is it difficult to focus right now? Do we need to do something else or take a break?”, “Do you need to go let out some energy right now? Let’s go outside.” I apply the same sorts of conversations to my students, too, especially when I know they’re dealing with different issues. For instance, last year, I had one student who was very open about being on the autism spectrum and described himself as “completely unaware of social cues”. Another was open about being homeless. I also had students who were clinically depressed, in the process of leaving abusive relationships or dealing with the loss of loved ones (including a twin sister, in one case), and facing many other instances of ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, and other issues that impacted learning. Being adaptable as a teacher is vitally important, so maybe it is helpful at times to have that constantly flowing trail of thoughts, leading me to new potential solutions and ideas.

Still, it is difficult some days. It’s like I can see a specific goal in front of me– I can almost grab it, but my mind dances between the ten other goals I want to accomplish sometime in the near future instead of choosing one to meet. It has made consistent writing (both in this blog and in completed and ongoing manuscripts) more complicated than it needs to be. I have, admittedly, used it as an excuse for my writer’s block, and I’m working on that because it’s not fair to myself. Writing makes me happy; I shouldn’t let my lack of focus take that away or defeat my potential. It takes a lot of dedicated focus to truly stay on task– and not lose all track of time and get swept up into that task when I finally do. Chemo was rough on me, and it made sustained focus so much less attainable these last few years, but I’m not going to let it get the best of me.

I guess this post is a message about how our brains are all a bit different, and that’s okay, but it’s also a message of how these brains and their function are impacted by our labels and by everything from our jobs to our past traumas. Maybe I can never have perfect, attuned focus, but I can still listen carefully to my children and my students, and I can try to funnel my focus into various creative tasks. I can also be grateful for a job where I make my own schedule, so that I have the flexibility for my brain to go in few hours from in-person teaching to a virtual meeting to office hours, to a quick walk, to grading in my office, to recording a video in some other part of campus, and back to teaching a different class. And I can hope that it makes my writing– if not always focused and timely– interesting, at the very least.