IN MY MIND: Spoons Are Not Just For Eating

I can understand why people would think I'm lazy. I think I'm lazy most of the time.

It is 5.30pm and all I have done today is watch a 40 minute recorded Instagram live with a comedian talking about her ASD diagnosis. That is not a productive day. The rest of my time has been spent lying in a dark room with my own thoughts.

If you're not familiar with spoon theory, let me give you a broad overview. The term was coined in an essay by Christine Miserandino - looking up her name is the second thing I have done today - to describe living with lupus and the way it affected her energy levels. Essentially the metaphor is to imagine you have a number of spoons and each time you do something, you have to hand over a spoon to do it. The number of spoons you have at the start of a day can vary wildly and can only be replenished through rest. In her essay, Miserandino talks a friend through this, taking spoons from them as they describe their day. The friend gets down to one last spoon and mentions that they're hungry. Eating is a spoon. Cooking is a spoon. Cleaning up after cooking is a spoon. Everything is a spoon. Choose your spoons wisely.

Right now at 5.50pm - writing this has taken longer than you might think - there are lots of things I need spoons for. I need to go to the toilet, I would like to brush my teeth, I should shower, I should eat something, I should take something for my headache and sinusitis, I have a cool teaching opportunity I want to apply for, I have a lesson plan for a class I'm co-teaching that I need to write down for my co-teacher, I have podcasts I'd like to listen to, I should go to the shop to pick up things I missed yesterday, I am rewatching Veronica Mars with my flatmate, I should tidy my room, I should do laundry, I should check my e-mail, I have a D&D campaign I want to plan, I should change my sheets, I have an idea fro a script I want to write, I want to plan to run drop-in improv classes, I want to talk to friends, I want to video call my niece, I should get dressed, I should check my e-mail...

I am doing none of these things. What I'm mainly doing - besides writing this - is figuring out how many spoons I have and which of these things I'm going to assign them to. Ironically and inevitably, this process costs me a spoon. When I run out of spoons for today - and I will - I rest and reset and do the same thing tomorrow. Maybe I'll have more spoons. Maybe less. I'm not writing this for sympathy or as a cry for help, I'm just explaining that this is my day. Constantly and exhaustedly searching for spoons and trying to use them to be my best me.

You might still think I'm lazy. Maybe you can do all of that stuff no problem. Maybe you can do enough of that stuff to be content and 'productive'. I'm pleased for you. I just play the spoons that I'm dealt.