Why You Have to Keep Moving
on ADHD and that restless feeling
They say it feels like being driven by a motor, but that’s not exactly right. More like being driven to pack a bag every time you hit the doldrums of autopilot, when your brain stops recording the colors your hydrangeas bloom in the spring because you know those hydrangeas already. They’ve become so familiar as to disappear.
You stop seeing things like that, fall into what you know and don’t even look at the scene anymore. You have no idea what you did last week because every week is the same, and you start to wonder if this is all there is. The only way I know to fix this is to move.
I know this feeling when it comes now, and I still waste time resisting it. Moving is hard; what you know is home. But moving has taught me that you make home wherever you go.
In my twenties, that need-to-go feeling was torture. I was too young to see the grey space between changing absolutely nothing and starting completely over, so I started over a lot, and I kept thinking that starting over would fix me.
The year after I graduated college, when I was working as a professional alcoholic1 and feeling lost, I flew to San Francisco and did mushrooms in the woods. The late afternoon sun slanting through a grove of redwoods made me cry like a fucking baby, and I came back knowing the world out there was beautiful and I was stuck in a patch of its ugliness and I needed to leave.
I’d spent six years in Miami, 24 total in Florida, USA, and all I could feel was that go, go, go feeling gripping my guts. They say the transition into adulthood can be a rocky one for people with ADHD;2 personally, I freaked the fuck out, quit my job and gave away all my stuff. I flew to Berlin with no return ticket, a savings account full of South Beach cocktail tips, and a list of college friends with couches.
