Old Habits and Heartaches

Originally posted 4/23/09


I just tied Ian to his bed, locked him in his room and turned my stereo up as loud as it can go. It’s a crappy 10-year-old Aiwa Best Buy stereo blasting out the Riverboat Gamblers at 100 decibels. I’m downstairs with the music and Ian is upstairs. Pictures are rattling off the shelves, my neighbors are beating on my walls, I’m pretty sure one of my speakers just busted…and I can still hear Ian talking to me. He has been trying to give me a hug and a kiss every two minutes for the past two months, all while rambling on and on about nothing and everything. Normally I relish in the affection, but tonight I’m a little too stressed out from all of the schoolwork I have to do. Final projects are coming due and finals week is drifting in like an Oklahoma thunderstorm, building up ominous and dark in the distance.
I also have the regular assignments to do as well. The easy “busy work” the professors give that most of my classmates finished long ago. All the homework I put off until the last possible second.
It’s all starting to heckle me like a bunch of toothless meth addicted carnies at the Apache rattlesnake festival.
I can practically smell it in the air: another semester is officially coming to an end.

Okay, so I didn’t really tie Ian up or lock him in his room. And I just now turned my stereo on (at a low volume) but I admit it is a scenario I have played out in my head countless times.

Actually, I think the semester has gone fairly well. I dropped some classes and cut back on the amount of hours I work so it’s not as hectic as the last three years have been. I still have a horrible problem with procrastination. Obviously it’s a common habit among college students, but having ADHD and a 4-year-old makes being successfully lazy harder than it should be. I’m too old to go through college fighting the same habits I had in junior high. I should set a good example for Ian and stop putting things off.
But I should do a lot of things.

Sometimes it seems like I procrastinate at being a good father because tonight I didn’t play with Ian at all. I let him watch Ben 10 and made him play with his toys so I could get some homework done. I keep telling myself that its okay, tomorrow I will play with him all night. It has to be worth it, I’m going to school so I can get a better job and give Ian a better life. I have to sacrifice but, sadly, it's like Ian does too. When it is all said and done it will be worth it. The bad thing is that I wasn’t able to spend much time with him last week either. If I added it all up, I have probably had to skip playtime a lot more often than I would like to admit, and its only because I procrastinate. If I was better organized and utilized my time adequately I wouldn’t be kicking myself in a blog in the middle of the night.
I realized a long time ago that when I stress out it is usually a direct result of my tendency to avoid my academic obligations. You could say old habits die hard, but I’m starting to think they don’t die at all.

But at least I don’t tie Ian up and lock him in his room. Right?