Post #5: Executive Functioning of the Late-Stage Teenage Brain

I was tired, in a shit mood, and ready for the day to be over, but I still had to eat. I decided chocolate chip cookies would be an acceptable dinner.

I let an 8 year old give me a haircut.

I bought a train ticket to a middle of nowhere farm in the absolute boondocks of Colorado to live in a glorified tent. I don’t know what the weather is like there. I haven’t bought a winter coat and it’s already Spring.

I badly burned a batch of cookies that were supposed to be my dinner.

I ate a batch of burned cookies and I felt really strange and groggy all of the next day.

I spend too much time trying to learn Italian instead of doing my homework. I don’t even take any Italian courses for school.

I lay in the grass too much and for too long.

I left the headlights on when I went grocery shopping and unsurprisngly came back to a dead battery. So I asked the lady sitting in her car next to me for a jump. So she starts her car. Except she doesn’t because her battery also died. I was pretty sure she was somehow fucking with me because how many times do two cars parked directly next to each other have their batteries die at the exact same time? So we get a third car involved, use my jumper cables to start my car, and then use my cables to jump the first lady’s car with the second lady’s car, and then we all drive to wherever we were respectively headed.

I thought painting outside in the rain would be ok.

While tutoring a 3rd grader, I forgot how to do long subtraction and had her explain the steps to me for a couple minutes until the concepts started to come back to me.

I don’t do laundry often enough.

I thought refrigerating tomato sauce was more of a suggestion than a rule. I was getting ready to use some of it in the pasta I had just made when I looked in the jar and saw that it had gotten moldy, and there was legitimately like 15 seconds where I was debating whether or not to just put it in and hope for the best (what, was I supposed to eat buttered noodles like a toddler with a digestive system that can only handle plain soup broth and chicken nuggets?). I ate buttered noodles.

I drop things a lot because I try to carry too many things at once. I forget to check the mental checklists that I’m constantly adding things to.

I dropped an egg in the chicken coop while filming something for class and, before I could do anything, the hens gobbled it up in less than 3 seconds. It was kind of horrifying when you consider the ethical implications of that situation.

I take phone calls in ladders and on top of trees, I don’t do nearly enough yoga, I drink more coffee than water. I check the NBA standings like 8 times a day and just stare at them, partly as a way of avoiding work that needs to be done, and partly for a thought experiment to see whether I can single handedly manifest changes in the standings by staring at them for a long time (it’s like that childish but persistent urge to try and pick stuff up with your mind just to make sure that you don’t have superpowers). I don’t call my mom enough, I should floss more, I don’t hold myself to my own standards, I let things happen to me, I am lazy and unmotivated 35% of the time, I slip into dishonesty way too easily and often, and I’m not very good at prioritizing things.

I don’t hold myself accountable, I have a terrible work ethic (I’m honestly pretty concerned with how I’m going to function as a tax-paying, wage making adult), my outfits are rarely color coordinated, I extend vulnerability to strangers but not friends, I let go of things I should hold on to and hold on to the things I should’ve let go of a long time ago, I push deadlines down the line, I don’t fold my clothes, they just wait patiently in a pile on the couch. I’ve never really learned exactly how the postal system works and I feel like it’s just too late at this point to bother learning, I don’t take my own advice.

I still subconsciously subscribe to the idea that bad decisions make for good stories, I’m writing these words to avoid working on tasks that are more urgent but less pleasant, I’m simultaneously too hard on myself and too easy on myself, I don’t take myself seriously and I take myself too seriously, I let the dishes pile up, I broke a swing set, I avoid necessary confrontation.

Even when I’m completely alone, I can’t dance as if nobody is watching because I’m always there, I put too much energy towards things that don’t matter to me and don’t put enough energy towards the things that do, I assume things will work out on there own without working on them, it takes me at least 30 minutes to get out of bed after my alarm goes off, I accidentally bought a enormous box of regular Cheerios thinking they were Honey-nut Cheerios (not knowing there was even a difference), I ask for forgiveness before permission, but sometimes I forget to ask for forgiveness.

I don’t always use my turn signals when there’s nobody else around, I answer with one word replies too much, I pick at the fraying seams of my ripped jeans so much that I’ll probably be wearing jorts by the summer, I don’t write down my dreams consistently enough to get back to lucid dreaming, I get the names and genders of the cats wrong, I promise things I can’t really promise, my posture could be a lot better. I spend most of my waking hours aimlessly thinking about relatively irrelevant things, I don’t take criticism well, I almost convinced myself to spend my life savings on a 2004 Honda Civic and just hit the road, I say things I don’t mean and I can be pretty mean, I don’t express my gratitude enough and when I do it’s rarely enough.

I stop conversations in their tracks, I cut corners where I can, I never quite know what I want and when I do I don’t know if I want to do the work that would be required to get it. I leave todays problems for tomorrow’s me, my borrowing walks the line of theft, my fingers don’t always obey my brain, I do my best to keep from growing up, I accepted a barehanded “3 cheese bean burrito” from a friendly cashier at a grocery store (yes, the same grocery store, different day).

I pick up passions faster than I can hold onto the ones I’m already trying to carry, I get mild panic attacks when looking at long to-do lists and decide to smoke instead, I don’t stretch before I run. I think the opposite of talking is waiting, not listening.

I breathe in the fresh air, but only long enough for my lungs to miss it when I stop, I’m not a good self-advocate, I didn’t know what to answer when Marie asked me point blank if I “had gumption”, I pretend like everything is my fault and that everybody else is at fault for that. I terrify myself into stasis, I stand still only long enough for the spaces I evacuate to miss me when I’m gone, I don’t respond to emails promptly, in fact, I delete most of them if they don’t seem interesting after the first 6 words, I leave thorns on the ground, I complain too much.

I can be reckless with the hearts of other people, I’ve been known to chase ghosts that only haunt me for as long as they feel wanted. I can tell a lie just by standing where I am, I give up on things before they’re even born, I take pictures with the lens cap on, I provide disinformation about the nearest gas stations. I talk a lot without saying a lot, I remember selectively and live forgetfully, empathy’s not a concept I’ve ever been able to get fully, I left a CD player and a roll of tape out in the rain, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve ever been or if I’ll ever be enough.

But, despite all of that, I’d honestly say I’m doing pretty good. Like, a solid 82%, which is fantastic considering I’m currently living through a global pandemic. And so, because my life is alright despite all the things in it that are not, I’m forced to imagine that for every mishap or fault that my eyes can find, there’r moments of beauty hidden in plain sight, keeping things fine.