Madi V Writes

I stayed up reading I Have Some Questions for You until 4 a.m.. More for the nostalgic rush that comes with reading into the wee hours of the morning than the allure of the book itself. I am enjoying the read though, I’m invested in uncovering the truth about what happened to Thalia. The struggle for me now is not letting the numbers monster steal the enjoyment of a good book.

The number monster is the beast in my brain that says reading is about how many pages I can read in an hour, pages a day, books in a month, or books in a year. I’ve been struggling with the balance of setting a goal and being competitive. My solution, so far, is to leave numbers out of it until the end of the year. When I read at the end of the day instead of calculating how many pages I read I write about what I got out of my time reading that day.

Moonrise Over New Jessup made this easy. Minnicks gave Alice the slow southern drawl that I’m accustomed to hearing but had never seen so eloquently written. The opportunity to see Alabama through Alice’s eyes opened my own to the beauty around me. I’d take longer looks at the stars over me on my evening walk, spend time trying to memorize the smell of spring wildflowers, and allow myself to admire the city skyline. Alice opened my heart to appreciating a state I’ve always wanted to leave.

Pushing the number monster mentality out is much harder for me with a mystery. I don’t do well when sitting with uncertainty, can’t enjoy twisting and turning journey. I’d rather binge read and get to the end with all my answers with my cork board and red string admiring the artfully tangled mess of things. So much like Bodie Kane, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and letting my theories keep me up.

In an attempt to pace myself when Preston left for work I called my best friend and the two of us caught up while we cleaned our houses. This has basically been the only way I’m able to trick myself into cleaning for quite some time. Calling a friend, sending an obnoxious amount of voice messages if they don’t answer, or putting on a podcast when I don’t want to bother them. Turns out there is a word for this need to have another person present in order to get things done, body doubling. I learned about the phenomenon from one of my friends mid body double cleaning call. I can’t overstate how helpful learning about body doubling has been for me.

If you, like me, struggle with executive dysfunction and want to give body doubling a try and aren’t sure where to start I recommend Australian pop star (and TikTok icon) Peach PRC’s doing self care with you playlist on Youtube. And of course, call your friends! It’s a wonderful way to catch up or keep in touch while getting tedious tasks done. If you’ve got my number call me! Seriously, I almost always have laundry to do and there is no way it’s getting done without a body double.