HELLO!

I recently sat with a group of old friends I had not seen in some time. As Bethe knows, as she continues to encourage me to reconnect with old friends and relations, I am the one guilty of being unavailable, the one family and friends have stopped inviting because I always send my regrets. Before 2002 I lived with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out – for purists, this is not a diagnosis, but most people know what I mean), if there was a social gathering, I was there and if there wasn’t, I would plan one. If you were to ask people who called me friend up and until 2002, they would say I was the one to plan, organize and invite people to gatherings.

At this gathering I noted people sharing various diagnosis, ADD, ADHD, OCD, etc… I was keen to understand how these diagnoses affected my friends and how they were living with this revelation. I listened. For instance, I know people my age who were only diagnosed with Dyslexia late in life and how that awareness changed everything for them. If you are interested to learn more, I suggest you consult certified health professionals. One question I did ask, where not much thought appeared to be given, was around consistency. For instance, persons who had been diagnosed and felt their behaviours, which had been labelled problematic previously and now were finally being understood, did not seem to offer that same grace to others whose behaviours might be explained similarly. I witnessed this first-hand. It reminded me of Matthew 7:3, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your neighbour’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”. If we want grace and understanding, do we offer grace and understanding to others?

As I get older, I am painfully aware of deficits in my skillsets. Some of these are likely the result of conditions I have inherited through various means. And there are behaviours that would likely appear slightly eccentric to many: I keep the same number of various clothing items and purge if I go over that number, everything I own in organized by colour and type, the number of emails I save is equal on all three of my email addresses, etc…I have no idea what to make of this. But one thing I do know, given this self-awareness I am loathe to make fun of anyone who has similar needs. Most of my family and friends are not nearly as organized as I am (coincidently, all of them have more skills than me). I am usually the first to respond to group invitations (usually with regrets). But what I find so strange is the friends who often are slow to respond are the most aggrieved by other friends when they do not respond. Go figure.

I guess what I am saying is, if we want others to understand us, offer us grace, be compassionate to us, we need to do likewise. Peace, Kevin

PS One old friend, who I had not seen in some time, told me “Most people our age complain about things not going their way, but you never do. What you complain about is inconsistency. Why? You are very flexible in outcomes and frustrated about inconsistency.” I am pondering this.