I have previously reported on the examination of my condition. In the meantime I can tell you that the loose screw has been found. At least: one loose screw. It is possible that more will be discovered or that, if this screw is tightened, the entire construction will be warped.
It has become ADD, I say it with some shame. Like I’m late to a party, joining a trend that’s long past its peak, because sometimes ailments are also subject to fashion. I sometimes hear myself judging myself scornfully: Oh my God, he also wants to participate, he must also be disturbed if necessary.
Yes, ADD, you also come behind at 50. Nowadays you get a stamp, a backpack, guidance, extra time and Ritalin. In my day you were expelled from school and made to buy your own drugs. A lot of hassle. First steal money, then to the coffee shop – no wonder there was no time left for school.
The first pills I was given were still part of the study. If you responded well to those things, there was a good chance that the diagnosis was correct. On the other hand, if it made you mad, scared, suspicious and you could hardly breathe, the diagnosis could be thrown in the trash and the junk box had to be shaken upside down again in the hope that some loose parts would fall out.
How should I describe the effect – via an anecdote? I used to go to a big garden party every year. They were always rough, they always got out of hand. Once, when I stopped drinking and went there sober for the first time, I was shocked to learn that they weren’t rough parties at all, but quiet and calm. Damn it, I thought to myself. I always thought everyone here was totally drunk, but that wasn’t the case at all. Nobody acted weird. I had been the only one.
I also thought of my father, a Blokker shopkeeper. No one in the world was busier every day than he, everything always had to be with steam and boiling water. “Oh, great God,” he often cried, “I don’t know what to do first or last!” I always had a suspicion, but in the meantime I am sure that although he meant this figuratively, he unconsciously spoke the truth in a literal sense.
If my father, who knows he has trouble with order, not with work, I’ve been walking through the days ever since, sober at a party. I’m not as busy as I always thought. The day is not short, but long, there is time everywhere. People don’t get in my way, they aren’t loud, slow and annoying, there are hardly any people left, because of the imaginary lack of time I pushed almost all of them off me.
A life with time, it takes some getting used to – how long did something like that last?