Do you ever feel like you are losing your ever-loving mind? Yesterday was one of those days for me. It wasn’t so much a day where things went wrong, as much as it was a day where I just forgot everything I was supposed to remember. I seem to be having more and more of these kinds of days.
Days where things go awry are reminders that things could always be worse, and usually a reminder of all the blessings I have in my life. Leaky roofs, broken down cars, spoiled milk. . .. all reminders that I have shelter, transportation, and enough food in my refrigerator for something to get wasted.
Days when I am just mentally rattled bother me more. They make me question my sanity, my efficiency as a mother and a wife, and cause me to doubt my own capabilities. I wonder if this is the beginning of early-onset Alzheimer’s, dementia, or aging in general. Is it lingering pregnancy brain that is so severe it has lasted fifteen years. Is it chemo brain? That one seems most probable. Or is it a combination of all of those things? If that’s the case, I’m a lost cause.
Yesterday started out like any other normal day. I was rushing around preparing to take my daughter to school.
Sidenote: It should be much easier for me to get ready now that I only have one self-sufficient child at home, but somehow it isn’t. When I had three kids at home, I ran a tight ship, but now I’m admittedly a little loosey-goosey with my time management. I am prone to hitting snooze WAY TOO many times, I NEED to make coffee, I HAVE to take the dog out and wait for her to take care of business, and I try to mentally organize my day. I never allow myself enough time to get everything done. It’s a simple fix, get up fifteen minutes earlier, but I rarely do. This storm of chaos I create on a regular basis is definitely a contributing factor to my forgetfulness.
Anyway, back to how my day started yesterday.
I grabbed a set of keys, without looking at them, out of our key basket.
Sidenote - My husband uses the basket religiously because he is very organized, I’m about 25/25/25/25. Twenty-five percent of the time I put them in the basket. Twenty-five percent of the time I put them in my purse. Twenty-five percent of the time they are left in the pocket of whatever I was wearing the day before. And twenty-five percent of the time I have no idea where they are.
Back to the story.
I grab the keys and put them on top of my wallet which was tossed on the kitchen counter DIRECTLY NEXT TO THE KEY BASKET and most definitely not in my purse. For some reason this makes me feel like I am being smart and saving time. I’m not sure why I thought this.
Sidenote - I started taking my small wallet out of my purse a while ago, so when I go to my Pilates classes I can just throw it in the glovebox out of sight. I don’t want to carry a purse because I will have to make a choice to either put it in the cubby at the studio or leave it in the car while I do my workout. Both of these seem like risky options and invitations for someone to steal it.
Another Sidenote- I am usually trusting beyond reason so why I have this paranoia is uncharacteristic for my personality.
Yet Another Sidenote- My wallet has not made it back in my purse for days because it seems I cannot be troubled to reunite the two.
Anyway, back to the point of the previous paragraph before the trail of sidenotes began.
I realize AFTER my husband leaves for work that I have his keys, which caused him to take my keys. This now means I do not have a key with buttons to lock and unlock the door of my car. I am stuck with the valet key. Not a big deal, a very first world problem, but aggravating, nonetheless.
I go about my day like usual without incident, manually unlocking my car door everywhere I go like I was in the 1970s. I also have had a headache, most likely from forgetting to hydrate. The hours fly by quickly and it is once again time to make the thirty-minute drive to school to pick up my daughter and take her to cheer practice, followed by gymnastics practice on the other side of town.
I head for the front door and miraculously notice for the first time that day a pile of clothes strewn over the back of the living room couch (they had been there since the night before). I think, Oh yeah, that’s the pile I’m supposed to take to the cleaners! I grab it and head for the door, walking right past the pile of backpacks necessary for cheer and gymnastics practice. This is the exact moment when the stream of forgetfulness begins.
Before you say, “Your daughter should have put them in the car herself,” I have to admit that I said to her that morning, “Don’t worry about putting them in the car (she had a lot of other stuff in her hands), I’ll grab them for you later. I promise I won’t forget.” They were RIGHT BY THE DOOR, but I guess I became used to seeing them all day and they became part of our décor. Backpacks in the foyer are all the rage, right?
I go to the drive-through cleaners, proud of myself for remembering, and then head to school. We get all the way to cheer practice (an hour away ) and realize there are no bags in the car. Mom fail.
While she practices (in gym clothes- not the required practice gear), I have plans to go to Wal-Mart since it is way too far to go home. Our dog needs food. This is the SOLE PURPOSE of the errand. I start driving there and see Aldi across the street – SHINY OBJECT -and think, Oh, I need a few groceries. I’ll go there instead! It’s cheaper. I’ll go to Wal-Mart next and get the dog food.
I finish shopping at Aldi and head for Wal-Mart. As I enter the parking lot, I notice the nail salon next door. I file this away in my brain (our son has a formal event this weekend at his college we are attending).
Sidenote - I have just realized I live my life much like a character in the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
As I enter Wal-Mart, I remember my daughter asking me to by Chai tea concentrate, her new obsession. Feeling badly for forgetting her stuff, I head directly for the tea aisle and place said tea in my cart. I mill around the store for a few minutes grabbing a few things here and there and head to the checkout stand which surprisingly has no line. First time EVER.
There is just enough time for me to get a quick manicure before cheer practice is over. I go to the recently spotted nail salon. I then resume my motherly duties with beautifully polished, red nails and pick up my daughter from practice and head to gymnastics across town—where my husband has now delivered the forgotten backpacks.
I go home and make dinner; a lovely taco casserole. The secret ingredient is Doritos. Okay, it’s not that secret, but it is delicious.
At 8:45 pm, five minutes before my daughter comes home from gymnastics (thankfully not my night for the carpool) my husband asks me about dinner.
Sidenote- he usually cooks dinner for us but did not on this particular day because he was mowing the grass (which he got a late start on since he had to take forgotten backpacks to gymnastics after work). I had willingly volunteered to take on dinner. Hey, I’m a team player.
Now back to the story.
I look up from my computer screen where I am frantically working on my next book with a confused look on my face. I say, “Of course I made dinner.” He says, “Is this dinner?” and points to the uncooked casserole sitting on the counter. Apparently, I never put it in the oven. Oops. Dinner was very late. Mom fail.
The rest of the night is a blur. My husband asked me about our termite contract, I can’t remember the details, heck I can’t even remember for sure if the policy was successfully transferred to us when we bought the house. I missed a thread from the cheer mom’s app that had some timely information I needed to respond to. Oops. Another mom fail. I realized I had forgotten to take my phone off of silence after Pilates hours ago, so I missed a number of phone calls—including one from my doctor reminding me of an appointment on Wednesday which I had completely forgotten about. Oops yet again. There is a trend emerging.
My husband then had the nerve to ask me if I fed the dog. He said, "Babe, did you feed the dog?" The nerve, right? I respond, “Not yet.” He goes to her food container only to find it empty. We had NO DOG FOOD! I forgot to buy it when I went to Wal-Mart!
My dog ate eggs for dinner. I was beyond frustrated. I considered it another mom fail, even if my fur baby was thrilled.
Nothing I forgot was critical, but I have forgotten quite a few things lately that make me wonder what the heck is going on with me. I am used to keeping up with everyone in the family’s schedule and juggling a million things at once while standing on one foot and twirling happily. . . but I just can’t seem to do it anymore. Is there an expiration date on mothers? Have I reached my peak of competency and am now on the downward slide? Has my brain reached full capacity? I can remember random trivia that comes spewing out effortlessly while watching Jeopardy but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast. Is my brain out of room for new information? Surely, that is not true.
I am terrible with keeping up with planners and calendars; I haven’t really needed them in the past because I had a mental filing system that worked. Hopefully, my forgetfulness can be attributed to stress and disorganization and nothing more serious. Maybe it can be attributed to the fact that moms have ENTIRELY TOO MUCH on their plates. It might also possibly be a result of me working on my next novel, and when I am writing, nothing else is on my mind. The flow is real.
I wholeheartedly believe I am WAY too young to be losing it. I have already accepted arthritis, but I cannot and will not accept mental decline gracefully.
Today is going a little better. I did forget my lunch on the counter and forgot to put my grandson’s humidifier in the car so I could return it, but it's okay. I don’t feel as out of it as yesterday. Probably by tomorrow, I will have forgotten everything I forgot these last two days and none of this will even matter.
Upon further reflection, I will try to consider these forgetful days as blessings because I eventually remembered. There might come a time in my life when I don’t remember that I forgot.
Do you ever get rattled or have a day where you can’t seem to remember anything? Make me feel better by letting me know in the comments!
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