When everyone is doing year-end reviews and roundups, and I'm not

And that’s not because I want to be different.

I already am. No conscious effort needed.

I don’t do the year-end stuff like everybody else does simply because I’d have to trawl through my journal, notes, reflections, work management system, etc. to remember the kinds of things most people put in a year-end review or year-end roundup.

That’s because they’re in the past and the past isn’t half as interesting as the future.

Oh, I do get the merit of acknowledging and celebrating what you’ve achieved — how far you’ve come.

But working through that mountain of material will not just remind me of everything I did accomplish, but also of everything I wanted to and forgot or didn’t get round to.

It comes with the territory of my neurodiverse brain.

It produces more ideas than I could ever execute on — even if I had 30 lifetimes. That wouldn’t help anyway, as it would also mean an extra 30 lifetimes worth of ideas.

Reminding myself of every idea I didn’t follow through on, feels like torture.

Actually, it is torture.

Torture I can only stand in small doses. Like once every week for the couple of minutes it takes to reflect on that week and decide what I’ll tackle — plan to tackle — next week.

Renaming my to-do list to "could-do” list helped some but can’t prevent the knee-jerk thoughts of “See, you talk a lot, but you don’t do much,” and “See, you’re full of it. You get all gung-ho at the start and then stumble at the first hurdle or just lose interest.”

That also comes with the territory of my neurodiverse brain.

You might, by now, think I don’t like my neurodiverse brain much.

You’d be wrong.

I don’t like the — mostly negative — messages a lifetime of living with an unrecognized neurodiverse brain has given me.

Virtually all of them calling my character, grit, and determination in question.

When I have oodles of them as long as I can keep my brain interested and the question “Why am I doing this again?” well away from its conscious deliberation.

I like my neurodiverse brain.

I like what all the positives it also brings me.

The fun parts that more than make up for the price I pay with the not so fun parts.

Its quirky nature. Its ability to dream and fantasize.

The crazy twists and turns it can send me through. The way it connects what seems utterly unrelated to any non-neurodiverse (neurotypical) brain.

The memories it serves me when I least expect them.

Not always pleasant, by the way. Like last night it recalled into my conscious mind seeing a hare drown in front of me. It had been startled by my dog and had careened into a canal in its panicked flight. Its speed had been so high that it landed so far from the side that it couldn’t swim back before it had gulped down too much water into its lungs.

But most of the time, my brain serves me pleasant memories.

Like unexpectedly received compliments that unexpectedly make it back into my mind as I drift off to sleep (unless that memory triggers another that triggers another, that… you get the picture).

Yes, my neurodiverse brain is a blessing and a curse.

But it’s mine.

In good times and bad.

And now that I recognize its neurodivergence, the good times have taken over again.

So what do I do in this culturally dictated contemplative time of year?

I let bygones be bygones and look to the future.

The past, after all, is the past and can’t be changed — unless you count reframing events as changing them, that is — but the future is there for the taking.

And you and I get to decide what our future will bring.

Of course not the grand scheme of things, but definitely what we set out to do and what we tell ourselves about what happens that’s beyond our control.

So, in these last few days of 2023, I’ll be deciding what 2024’ll hold for me.

More on that later — stay tuned.