Why Is That Ladder Still in My Bathroom?

by Brenda on March 4, 2009

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Hint: the ladder is in the bathroom for the same reason that there are 2 cans of paint and a step stool in my living room. And yes, I do have a point and it is related to ADHD.

Five weeks ago, I went into our downstairs bathroom to find water leaking from the ceiling. Not good. It turns out the leak was from the bathroom upstairs, directly over the downstairs one.

When my husband came home, he ripped out a hole in the ceiling and another one in the wall upstairs to get at the pipes.

After 2 or 3 weeks, many tries and more curse words than you can imagine, the leak was finally fixed. That was at least two weeks ago.

Two days ago, the hole in the ceiling was plugged with drywall and the first coat of mud was added. The ladder has been in my bathroom for 5 weeks. Five weeks. It’s not a big bathroom, and with the ladder in there, it’s a lot smaller.

Do you remember that my husband Mark has ADHD?

Here’s the thing: he jumped right into fixing the leak because first, it was urgent and needed to be done right away, and second, because it was a new project. New projects, even plumbing, can be exciting. It’s something new and distracting that takes us away from our mundane lives.

But after five weeks (actually long before that) the project is no longer new nor exciting. Now it is just another part of our mundane lives, and other things have taken it’s place. Like painting. Surely you remember the cans of paint and the step stool in my living room?

We as ADDers are always looking for the next: the next best thing, the next shiny thing, the next newest thing. Anything that will distract us from what we have to do right now that is no longer (or never was) interesting.

Now here comes the part where it sounds like I’m going in a completely different direction, but I’m not. Honest.

I love self-help books. Who couldn’t stand a little improvement, right?

One of my favorites is by Talane Miedaner and it’s called “Coach Yourself to Success”.

One of the first things Talane mentions in her book is what she calls “petty annoyances” - “…everything you are putting up with, the things you are tolerating, enduring…”.

Talane says that these petty annoyances are energy drains, and don’t you think she’s right? I sure feel discouraged every time I walk into my bathroom and have to navigate around that ladder. I bet my husband feels worse.

Feeling bad and drained of energy is hardly a motive to take action, but it’s probably the best motive we have.

In “Coaching Yourself to Success”, Talane says that making a list of your petty annoyances is a good place to begin. It’s positive action, even if you don’t take care of everything on that list. But if you commit to making an effort, only good things will happen as a result.

I’m going to give it a try and see if I can get my bathroom back.

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