Focus, or a Lack Thereof
12-Aug-09
I’ve lamented, for a long time now, that my brain just doesn’t seem to focus very well or function like it used to before I got pregnant but I’m not so sure I can chalk it up to “mommybrain.” Becoming a mom coincided with leaving my job. As a teacher, I worked in a very stimulating, intellectual, challenging environment on a daily basis. That went away when I left my job after my first trimester and left a huge intellectual void. This past year, I’ve been busy, busy, busy with the challenge of raising my first child but it’s not the kind of challenge that stokes those cognitive synapses; it’s more of a survival challenge. Sad, but true!
I’ve become more cognizant of this void as of late, as Alice becomes more independent and I find myself with a little more room to breathe. While on vacation this month, I finished a book in two days, something I haven’t done in FOREVER. I’m almost done with a book I started when Alice was first born. It’s like my brain is slowly, but surely building up to normal capacity again. My attention span, though, leaves something to be desired. I find myself unable to focus on a task for much longer than a few minutes. My husband’s biggest complaint these days is that I spend way too much time checking Facebook, in an OCD fashion. I get annoyed when he harps on me but he’s right. I cannot go more than five minutes without checking Facebook. Even now, as I write this, the primary thought at the front of my mind is “time to check Facebook.” I’m forcing myself here to stay on this page and finish this blog post, at least, before I switch tabs and see what I’ve missed in the world in the past two minutes.
In the November 2007 issue of The Atlantic, Walter Kirn tackles multitasking, and purports that multitasking is “dumbing us all down and driving us crazy.” It’s hard to argue against that when I feel it so acutely in my own life. Focusing on a single task requires patience, stamina, and tenacity. Seriously, it does. It requires mindfulness. It is something I’ve vowed to work on, my own personal challenge.
I have a book idea floating around in my head and I’ve had a hell of a time trying to write an introduction for this book, so that I can shop it around to literary agents. My inability to focus is causing a huge mental block. I bought myself a new journal and a copy of Writing Down the Bones in the hopes that it would add some structure to the task I’ve set for myself. I managed to get a bunch of writing done while on Cape Cod, mostly personal journal entries and the start of something that might become the introduction to the book.
[... I stopped here to answer an IM from a former student, then looked up a website for her, noticed that it is now pouring and IM'd my husband to inform him of this fact....]
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes… my inability to focus. *sigh* I feel my attention waning. Don’t take it personally. It’s really this one’s fault…
