I spent much of my free time yesterday desperately searching for my debit card. In my usual ADD fashion I've managed to lose it yet again. It may turn out to be not as big a deal as when I accidentally washed my cell phone, killing it D-E-A-D, but it's still pretty darn bad.
I can't be trusted with anything of value. I can't be trusted not to forget things, not to lose things or, lately, to be on time for anything. I am, I hate to say it, absent-minded.
On my last visit to my doctor she gave me a few pages of an article on re-training your brain. Though I don't doubt I'm intelligent - most of the time - I do doubt my ability to apply myself to one thing without my mind drifting off to something else mid-project. If I were to write down what I think about on any random day it would make a great stream-of-consciousness novel. No one would believe one person actually thinks all those things in one day, and it would take a college course to make any sense of it.
I think a lot of us do that, bounce from topic to topic, but I'm especially bad. I have a drug that's supposed to help me focus, and that does help, but my case is so serious it takes even more than that to keep me on track. Some days I wonder how I focus at all. Many days I just don't, boinging from thought to thought like a monkey swinging on a vine. That's why I keep a monkey in my car, in an attempt to make light of a topic that, underneath it all, drives me almost mad.
One thing I've never forgotten is to pick up my children from someplace. At least that's a point in my favor. I've fallen asleep and been late, but I've never forgotten them entirely. I have forgotten to take them places, but luckily their memories are better than mine. One quick reminder, "MOM WE NEED TO GO NOW!!" and I jump in my car - assuming I can find my keys - and I'm off.
Speaking of my keys, don't get me started on those. I have a hook to put them on when I come through the door. Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. I've taken to leaving the keys in the car, at least when I'm home, so there's no way I can lose them. But even then sometimes I'll think I've left them in the car and I actually haven't. But I've never lost them so thoroughly I couldn't find them in 10 minutes.
But my debit card. That one drives me crazy. I'm one of those who takes such things so casually I hardly ever make sure to put it back in my wallet properly. If it makes it to the general area I'm okay. It's a wonder I don't lose it more than I do (I think I'm up to three times so far).
Yesterday I was so sick of being me I retreated to my bed for a while in order to beat myself up and tell myself what a dope I can be. Everyone else was playing video games, so I doubt anyone knew I was missing. I beat myself up mentally for being the way I am, deciding I'm tired of being me. I'd like to change places with someone who's organized for just one day.
Weirdly enough, I had a dream that I'd done just that. It was set in the antebellum period here in the States, and I was wearing one of those big hoop skirts, hobnobbing with the wealthy in a huge plantation home. I had some sort of fiance or something, and he wound up kidnapping me, forcing me onto a boat. Then I was an onlooker, a friend of the person being kidnapped, and I helped her escape. She took a dive off the boat, then she and I were running through the woods to an awaiting carriage that carried both of us off. I switched from myself to her at least twice during the dream, though in both cases I was either in some sort of peril or saving "the other" from peril. Interesting. The running through the woods came directly from a book I'm reading In the Woods. It all got mashed together into some weird amalgam of my day, plus my wish to be someone else. Interesting how the mind works.
When I tell my doctor my wish to change lives with someone else, since I can be such a complete pain in my own @$$, she generally reminds me of all I do, how I get straight As in grad school, I work, I write, I have children I take care of and all of that. "Don't you see all you do?" The answer is I see it, but I'm not impressed. Her reply, "Maybe you just do too much..."
There's the occasional day I wouldn't trade at my life with someone else's. Anyone want to change for a day? It'd be like Freaky Friday. You be me, the monkey-minded loser of all things, and I'll be you. Preferably you're someone with a really hot boyfriend or girlfriend, someone fit and hot yourself, living in splendor, but I'll take just about anyone who's not incarcerated or otherwise psychotic.
Let me know and we can perform some kind of Star Trek mind-meld or something. You can even perform the switch over the next two weeks, while I'm on vacation. I'm easy. But I'll need you to clean out the litter box. It tends to get rather rank. Leave me a comment and we'll talk.
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