I’ve been feeling as if I’ve been losing my mind lately. And not in the awesome late eighties Prince “let’s go crazy” kind if way but the Julianne Moore “Still Alice” scary version. I went to see my doctor about this a year or so ago. Because not only am I losing my mind but I’ve put on extra weight that won’t come off and I’m just not bouncing back from twelve hour work days and nights of drinks with clients like I used to. My doctor told me I’m just getting older and it’s part of life. So I made her check my thyroid level because…well it can’t be just age. Turns out my levels are fine but I’m still not ready to believe my doctor. Even though she is a working mom my same age with two small sons the same age as my boys. So basically it’s the medical version of me and I still won’t accept her diagnosis. Love you, Dr. Lau!
Three weeks ago I forgot I was forty. My twenty-five year old assistant told me she had fifteen pounds to lose and I told her I did too. She proposed we have a weight loss challenge to see who could lose the weight the fastest. This sounded like a brilliant idea until she left my office and I realized I had just made a bet to lose weight with a woman fifteen years my junior. She was at an age when, as my friend Julie summed it up, “we thought Diet Pepsi and cigarettes were breakfast foods.” Or as my friend Jaimie pointed out, “we’d eat pizza at 3am and wake up skinner than when we went to bed.” Sigh.
My dear friend, Heidi, told me that the reason I’m consistently double booking myself – like last week when I booked a trip to DC the same weekend I’m presenting at a Boys & Girls Club event which then cost me about double the price of the original ticket to change – is because my calendar probably isn’t syncing my appointments correctly. And while I want to believe her I still haven’t tried to verify the “syncing issue” because if that isn’t the problem then that means…well, it means I’m definitely losing my mind.
Maybe I need more green tea and less Sauvignon Blanc in my diet. Maybe I should sign up for one of those brain game websites. Maybe I need more time to meditate and practice yoga. But maybe I just need to cut myself some slack. It’s hard keeping track of my calendar and my husband’s calendar and my two children’s busy calendars. Maybe I just need to accept that this is going to be one of the busiest times in my life – demanding career and small children – and I just need to embrace the chaos. Because my friend Kelly promises me I will miss this someday. And in my heart I know she’s right.
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