What has this pandemic done to my brain???

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks easing into 2022 – planning for various goals, trying not to overdo those goals, and thinking about why the last almost two years has rendered me almost completely unable to write. The pandemic years haven’t been the worst years of my life, and I’ve had many wonderful moments. But actually focusing on money, or career, or whatever it is that I normally write about just hasn’t happened.

For me, there has been an undercurrent of anxiety and grief that is hard to describe (even more difficult to describe when you’re having writer’s block, amirite?), but essentially, it hasn’t left room in my brain for much more than the essentials and, in my downtime, relatively mindless entertainment.

I read very few of my book club books in 2021. I spent a lot of time scrolling on Instagram and watching/re-watching The Americans. College football. Napping. Wallowing. But even jotting something down in my journal has been difficult, so you can forget blogging and regular content creation!

New mans, new meds

The most significant changes to come for me in the last two years are my ADHD diagnosis and my boyfriend, both making their grand entrances in October of 2020. My therapist had suspected for quite a while that I had ADHD, but I had put off reading the book she recommended (Driven to Distraction by Dr. Edward Hallowell) for at least two years. Once I finally cracked the cover, I realized I had almost every symptom and trait of ADHD that an adult woman could possibly have.

Learning I have ADHD was a huge relief. It explains my chronic underperformance, lateness, absentmindedness, extreme procrastination, impulsive shopping (and also shopping indecisiveness – consistent inconsistency) and even some of my sensory sensitivities. It also explains some of my good traits, like being creative, thinking outside the box, and performing well under pressure.

Although I naturally and unknowingly developed pretty good coping mechanisms over the course of my life (hence the late diagnosis!), there are some significant holes in my ability to navigate my life with ADHD, particularly in the workplace. I started taking stimulant medication almost right away, which has helped, but working memory and executive function, both of which are CRITICAL to being a successful lawyer, are still areas in which I need to improve.

While I wish the world would just allow me to be my neuroatypical self, I’ve unfortunately chosen a career where that can be more difficult. Starting a new job recently has given me a chance to try some new things in the realm of informal accommodations, like asking my secretary to input my time. Hopefully these things, combined with some new organizational tools, will help fill in the gaps in my brain function and help me succeed.

Once the relief of having an answer wore off, the frustration of understanding exactly what I was facing set in. WHY can’t my brain be like other peoples’? Why has society built itself around arbitrary measures of productivity? When will I have a boss who doesn’t micromanage how I do things?

I am a competent attorney. But some of the things expected in workplaces are just…extremely difficult for my brain. And sometimes it feels like I will never get on top of what I need to get on top of to succeed in my industry. It may not be for me long-term. I haven’t accepted yet that my career may not be a fit (mostly because I don’t know what else I’d do and somewhat enjoy, particularly that pays as much as my career pays).

No day but today (to get my money right)

So how does this relate to money? Well, after working with an extremely unreasonable partner for a few months (who I will be able to avoid in the future, thankfully), and knowing that I absolutely could not work for someone like that, or succeed working for someone like that, I decided I want to take my financial fate out of the hands of my employer as quickly as is reasonably possible.

My boyfriend and I have had several conversations about what we want our lives to look like in a few years. In 5-10 years (fewer if I’m being honest), we want the option to not work another day in our lives while also making six figures in income.

My ADHD brain doesn’t know what to do with the fact that I don’t currently have “a plan” to get there, but I’m going to use this year to get certain financial pieces in place so that next year, I can actually start to think about how to make enough money to retire early. I’ve never been specifically into FIRE before (and I don’t think I’ll become A FIRE Blogger now), but I am DEFINITELY going to start focusing on passive (or mostly passive) income streams.

What will this look like? For 2022, it is paying off my car and credit cards once and for all, saving/investing a significant amount of money outside of my 401k, and doing a good job at my day job so that I can relax on the employment front and become eligible for raises and promotions.

My other big news in the last two years is that I purchased a rental property with my best friend from law school. It isn’t in the green yet, but we are starting to earn income and I really enjoyed renovating the property and getting it ready for guests. I think there’s long-term potential for me to get into the real estate investing world on the non-legal side, and I’ll be learning on that front in 2022 as well.

Thanks for sticking with me through this post, which is more to clear the writer’s block than anything! What are your goals for 2022? How has the pandemic shaped your behaviors and what you have and haven’t been able to do? Share in the comments!