I am LOSING MY MIND.
I am forgetting everything, right
and left. I am acting all cool about being laid off and suddenly having no
commute in the morning, sleeping late, cooking more, feeling like Suzy
Homemaker, but the truth is my brain is on autopilot.
I have two brains. I have Office Brain, and Home Brain. Office Brain is great. It takes care of calendaring. Home Brain doesn’t do calendaring. Home Brain is slow, like Forrest Gump on ‘ludes. Home Brain needs shock therapy.
Office brain has left the building.
Shock Therapy is coming. It’s called
embarrassment. No wait, it’s worse. It’s called humiliating,
mortifying, OMG I am turning into an imbecile kind of embarrassment. I
embarrass myself. Nobody else has to know and I’m still embarrassed. That's just between us, OK?!
I will never, ever again think stay
at home moms have it easy. They are my new heroes. They have to do everything
on Home Brain function.
I realized today that it’s the 6th
day of the month and my contacts feel like I stuck hefty bags in my eyes with
hot glue. Why? Because on the first day of every new month I NORMALLY put in my
new contacts and toss the old ones. I didn’t do that last week. I can only
blame it on the fact that my babies were out in the wilderness with The Major
and I was sorta freaked out by the quiet house.
Last Friday, Alesia was supposed to
have a tennis lesson at 9 a.m. It was on the calendar in the kitchen, not the
calendar upstairs by my desk. I don’t have an Outlook calendar any more, and I
am ashamed to say if a popup window doesn’t appear on my computer in the morning, I am
helpless. I am at the mercy of paper calendars and they don’t make noise.
Fortunately, I was blessed. I called to apologize to the tennis coach and he
didn’t have it on his calendar either. Thanks be to God.
Back in June, I completely forgot
the Amputee Coalition of America conference. I signed up Mike to go, because it was here in Atlanta, and I paid
the money months ago. I got the badges and popped them into my purse. I then
forgot about it. It was the weekend after I was laid off. I can only attribute
the memory lapse to being freaked out about not having a job for the first time
in 24 years. I hate that Mike missed it, though. I apologized to him. I felt so
bad that he didn’t get to go be with other amputees, where he feels normal. Poor
baby.
Sometimes there is just evidence of
a slow leak. I was working with Michael today on his bridge book and I forgot
how to spell Hawaii. I used to win spelling bees! I normally ROCK at spelling!
I also forgot what 9 times 6 was the other day. Yikes.
Tonight I forgot to make dinner. One
minute I had dropped Alesia off at softball practice and Mike off at tennis,
come home and checked email, and the next thing I know it’s time to pick up
Alesia and no dinner is made. Time is a very mysterious thing right now.
I am trying to mend my ways. I have
a small yellow pad with a list of a dozen things that need to be done this
week. They include such fun things as “get oil changed in car” and “go to post
office” and “buy pilmeni” (a Russian dumpling).
Alesia’s birthday is Thursday. I am
trying not to forget it.
Mike has to catch a bus to camp on
Thursday morning. He is looking forward to it, even though it’s only a long
weekend this year due to budget constraints.
I can barely remember to look both
ways in the car. I nearly t-boned a Honda Civic this afternoon, while the
children screamed. Yes, Home Brain wasn’t working in the car.
I think Alesia has her first grey
hair, and Mike has a new pimple.
I have hope, however. As the movie
Schindler’s List says so eloquently, “The list is life!”
My Mother is a list maker. Her
mother, Memaw, was a list maker. It’s in the blood. Pray that I remember
everything that goes on the list.
Pray that I can remember how to read
my own weird handwriting.
Pray that the multiplication tables
and the driver’s rules don’t fall out of my rapidly-graying head.
Just pray.
