Appreciating the ordinary

Life has been complicated recently.

I've spent some time realising why it is I find life so complicated, and the last 3 years of "interesting" self-discovery have certainly helped me to understand chronic anxiety and autism better - and all the associated bits and bobs to do with over-thinking, hyper-sensitivity, and physical botherings have made me see myself in a very different way and forgive and love myself a bit better but it doesn't change anything and it doesn't make anything go away. Life, convention and society, clocks, routines and seasons keep on coming and going and messing with my natural rhythm. 

I toy every day with the have-to-dos and the ought-to-dos and the want-to-dos, and the biggest thing I've discovered about myself is my inability to juggle. I was very good at appearing efficient and organised in the past - and I can be again if I so choose - but that organising, efficient me was always functioning within very strict, very controllable limits. 
I can't combine the practical and the creative easily, I can't switch from self-preservation to supporting others easily. I must do one version of me or another version of me and stick to it until I've done what I need to do. 

Being creative and allowing yourself time for your creativity is difficult these days for anyone. But being creative and allowing yourself time for creativity when you're an anxious, autistic woman is incredibly complicated. Executive functioning can be a huge problem and hours simply vanish on a bad day or after a period of busyness. 
Creative moods strike me like lightning and throw me regularly but I don't act upon them, I don't think I have time. I get frustrated, I get upset, I see hours slipping away, days coming to an end, and I feel I've failed to perform any self-preservation acts again. I begin to hate things I should love and see them as obstacles

As I said: it's complicated. 

I give myself a good talking to regularly and remind myself to appreciate the ordinary. I love ordinary. I don't need any more adrenalin rushes than day-to-day life gives me anyway and I appreciate the small things. Life is beautiful, the world is beautiful. I even see beauty in decay and trash.
But the chaos can override any appreciation of anything and I have to remember to take time to love things. So tonight I went out in the rain and took photos of the leaves on the trampoline I've been noticing out of the corner of my eye for a couple of days. 

It made me smile. It made dinner late too. 
This is where I try not to feel like a failure again.
It's fun in my head. Never a dull moment.