We are headed to Jamaica tomorrow for my youngest brother Gary’s wedding. This is incredibly exciting because we’ve had a lot of traumatic stuff going on lately, including Stephanie’s mom’s long illness and death from liver cancer on May 19th of this year. We really need a vacation, we need relaxation and fun and frivolity and time away from home and work.
I have been losing words lately. I seem to have a chronic problem of not being able to find the word I’m thinking of, losing track of what I was going to say mid-sentence, and even sometimes saying words I didn’t intend without realizing I’m doing it–I was talking about the upcoming wedding with someone, and referred to it as Christmas. I didn’t realize I did it, but they assured me I did. Co-workers have noticed and commented on my problem a number of different times with some concerned tones.
I’m also having trouble reading at times, too. I’ll read the same page five or six times and not understand what I’m reading. I picked up a book of classic poems, and I can’t seem to follow a good chunk of the verse. I have a stack of 9 books that I’ve started and read the first few pages, but left unfinished.
I don’t know why this is happening, but I don’t think I actually have a physiological problem. My guess is that it’s a combination of stress and a mild form of ADD I’ve given myself by having too many directions of input — twitter, gmail, work email, blogs and now the IM that our work managers are pushing us to use are all chirping, beeping and blinking at me all day long.
On the stress front, we’ve obviously been wedding planning, (seriously – elope! I’m openly advocating that now) there’s a lot going on at work–I designed, created content for and help launch 3 websites last week, and am working on two more to launch on May 30–and life milestones that I’m in avoidance mode about–I’m turning 40 on June 6th.
So I need to cut back on some stuff. I turned off the gmail notification. I’m refusing to open IM. I check my work email 3 times a day, and I check twitter only a couple times while at work.
While I am looking forward to the wedding, I have to admit, the vacation afterward is what I keep daydreaming about.
Make a list of things to do that you’ve already done.
Start a nasty rumor and see if you recognize it when it comes back to you.
When someone says "have a nice day" tell them you have other plans.
Stare at people through the tines of a fork and pretend they’re in jail.
Dance naked in front of your pets.
Put your toddler’s clothes on backwards and send him off to school as if nothing was wrong.
Bill your car repair people for the time spent in their waiting room.
Retaliate for tax woes by filling out your tax forms in Roman numerals.
Tape pictures of your boss on watermelons and launch them from high places.
Leaf through a National Geographic and draw underwear on the natives.
Pay your electric bills on pennies.
Make up a language and ask people for directions.