What is today’s date anyway?

I, like many mothers, feel like I am losing my f’ing mind.  I don’t mean just crazy…that is a GIVEN..I mean like my MEMORY.  Like what did we eat for dinner last night?  What was I supposed to do with this thing in my hand?  Why did I walk into this room?  I know I was supposed to pack something else…? Where did I put my keys…that I had in my hand…ten SECONDS ago?

There are scary times too. When I get in the shower..that I have used the last EIGHT years and stare at the handle.  Do I turn it left or right?

Really? 

Or, when my daughter asks me how to spell a SIMPLE word, and I stare at her hard…like I am willing the letters to pop in my head, and finally say screw it-get my phone out to text the word so that auto correct will show me how to spell the damn thing.

During super scary times, like when someone describes an occurrence that was said to have happened…that I have ZERO recollection of…I pause and wonder if I have the gene.  You know-IT. The one my Nona suffered from.  IT= Alzheimer or dementia. When that happens I start to panic.  I start to quiz myself, which of course only produces fruitless results, cause now I am forgetting EVERYTHING except that I might have IT, so that I really say F it and grab the bottle of wine to drown ALL memories. **NOTE TO MY CHILDREN- IF I SUFFER FROM IT AND YOU PUT ME IN A HOME- PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE SNEAK ME IN WINE. LOTS AND LOTS.  I won’t remember you for shit, but know I am grateful**

Facebook has become my best friend.  Not for the social media aspect- but because it TELLS ME WHEN TO WISH PEOPLE HAPPY BIRTHDAY. My friends all think I am a hero when I mail them a card, send them a gift or simply write, “happy birthday” on their wall.  I am NO hero.  Thank Facebook-cause I am LAME and can’t remember your birthday for crap.  I have been known..on occasion, to barely remember one of my children’s birthday’s were coming up.  Listen, if you got the invite to my child’s birthday, the day before the party, it was probably cause technology sucks.  Not cause I forgot.  Probably.

A good friend of mine just had her first baby.  She was so excited and like all new moms had so much fun telling me the birth story, the fantastic moment when they first put her baby on her tummy and how she was filled with such joy (she doesn’t know any better yet people).  I smiled during her story and thought back to the very first thought I had during my first child’s birth.

After hours of induced hellashish labor, with no drugs (I was STUPID during the first one) and a vacuum inspired, ripping the child out of my body experience- the doctor finally put him on my chest.  I remember looking down at his scrunched up face and the very, very first thing that popped in my head;

“wait…what is today’s date?  How in the hell will I remember his birthday??”

I swear.

That was my first thought.

Because you see, I can’t just blame my issues on motherhood.  They preceded motherhood. I have always sucked at remembering things.  My husband makes fun of my calendar reminders on my phone, which tell me when to take the trash to the street (yes, yes it does) and when to pick up my children from school (yes, yes my phone tells me, one hour before, thirty minutes before and 15 minutes before the time to pick up a child- SO I DON’T FORGET TO PICK UP MY OWN KIDS).

There is no cure for this issue I don’t think, but wine comes really, really close to being a solution.  I am pretty sure, if it were legal, doctors would just prescribe it;

“Don’t sweat the memory thing, it affects us all, however, one way to help alleviate the AGGRAVATION of it is to do one simple thing at a time, you know, so you don’t overstimulate yourself.  Just uncork this, pour a hefty serving, and take as prescribed- which is daily…in abundance.”

So…I will.

Cheers!