Sometimes I play this game called Early-stage Dementia or Mom Brain. Basically I tag examples in my life where I can't remember something to either one camp or the other. Then I try to recall the frequency with which these things happen between occurrences, like a sort of proof that everything is just fine as long as I can keep a mental log. Up until getting pregnant, I hung my hat on my memory. While it wasn't Jeopardy-class, it was sort of my thing. I had heard about the memory loss and general absentmindedness that accompanies pregnancy and the subsequent childbirth. I seem to recall that it lasts at least as long as you're breastfeeding, but I think you can guess that I can't be trusted right now with my memory. I'm told that there's a vaguely scientific reason for the memory loss: because there are so many things going on in your brain that you start forgetting trivial stuff. I wish there were a clinical definition of trivial. So. A partial list of things I have mistaken or forgotten within the last month:
- Read the word "binder" online. Pronounced it in my head as "bin-der"
- The name of the really sweet EA of one of my clients. A woman with whom I have had countless conversations about fertility and kids and her cousin and her fiancé. I could remember her hair and face and voice, just not her name for crissakes.
- To put appointments in my work calendar (twice)
- Literally, that I had deliverables due the very next morning and probably needed to start on them (twice)
- The words "sour cream" to describe that dairy thing that you put on top of your baked sweet potato. Instead called it "white stuff," which may be confusing to children of the 80's.
- The Sanskrit word for standing forward bends in yoga. Which might not seem like a big deal except that I spent a lot of time memorizing that ish. In truth, this one may be a stretch (ha!!) and really just reflects how much time I walk around speaking Sanskrit these days
- That apparently I did a Father/Daughter cooking thing in junior high. I suppose this one too doesn't necessarily fall into the mom brain or dementia column, but when my dad reminded me of it, it felt like one of those things I should remember
- To write my 500 words a day post (at least three times)
- Words like "fricatives." Seriously. I just re-learned it on Saturday night only to completely forget it by Monday.
I'm not at the sticky note phase though, so I think we're safe.
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If I have to be honest, one teensy little thing I absolutely loathe about my neighborhood: the f*cking helicopters flying overhead for an extended period of time. We live a short distance from the Children's Hospital, and I can't take issue with that, but right now there is a helicopter that's been circling for a half hour. And sometimes that happens a lot. Grr.