January has not been a great month for me. I’ve felt fussy and out of sorts. I was experiencing some symptoms (chest tenderness, bloating/weight gain, GI issues, grumpiness) that I was attributing to holiday weight gain, but that I realized around mid-month was probably hormonal. My hormone fluctuations are so random these days it always takes me a while I realize that is probably what is making me miserable, and this bout especially was so long that I needed several weeks of feeling out of sorts to realize what was happening.
Then my brain started breaking. It started with some small stuff, but culminated in a few days of really incredible mishaps, of increasing severity.
First I went to book club on Sunday, at my good friend’s sister-in-law’s house. I was excited to go, because I always heard so much about her daughter’s cousins (her daughter and my daughter are good friends), and I was pleased to finally put faces to names. So when I went over, I eagerly met both girls and chatted with them a bit. Later, the sister-in-law’s husband came in and I barely nodded at him from my seat on the sofa. It was only later, when I got home, that I realized that the sister-in-law’s husband was my friend’s brother! Who I have been wanting to meet for two years! How did I not make that connection when I was there? Or before hand? I am so mad at myself for the missed opportunity, but also concerned that I didn’t even make that connection until several hours later.
The next day at work I spent all this time writing the names of students who had missing work and therefore couldn’t pick their seats, only to get out into the hallway and start calling names to a dumbfounded class that didn’t recognize them. I had done all that work for a class much later in the day! That may seem like an innocent enough mistake, but I have never done anything like that in 20 years of teaching. I was so sure I was looking at the right class.
Then, that afternoon I got home and did something horrifying. I pulled the car into the driveway and got out, leaving my car door open with my phone still plugged in. I walked up to the front door (the gate was open in case of a delivery) and tried three times to get my work key to fit in the deadbolt. Of course it didn’t because it was my work key, but as I was doing it the third time, I absentmindedly pulled the gate shut, locking myself into the tiny space between the gate and the front door. I immediately realized what I had done and started ringing the doorbell, thanking god my husband was home. But my husband didn’t come to the door. After frantically ringing it a bunch of time in a row, my phone started ringing. Since it was in the car, still plugged into the speakers, the ringtone was super loud. I just kept ringing the bell and my phone kept ringing on the car speakers and I kept being locked in the entryway. After about three excruciating minutes of this, a guy walked by and it was all I could do not to reach out between the bars and grab him. I did call after him and begged him to reach into my car and get my keys, which he did, at which point I was able to unlock the front door and get into the house.
That last one really shook me. Looking back I was so cognizant of the fact that the key wasn’t fitting in the lock. Why would I pull the gate close? I never do that! If my husband hadn’t been home, or no one had walked by, I could have been stuck in there for a long time. It could have been very, very bad. (And yes, I know the gate should have a latch on the inside. Several people have informed us that it’s a fire hazard to not have a latch on the inside of the gate – we’ve always just kept a key hanging INSIDE the front door to open the gate in case our electricity goes out in a fire. Getting the latch installed (which will probably require totally replacing the gate) is something I’ll be looking into fixing now.)
Anyway, it’s been really upsetting to watch myself do such dumb shit, over and over. I’m worried I’m going to lose something important, like misplace my passport on my trip in two weeks, or worse, cause an accident that affects others. I’ve read a lot about perimenopause affecting cognition, and I’m assuming (hoping!) that that is what’s going on. I feel like I spend my life about to make mistakes like these and now that hormonal fluctuations are affecting my cognition, I’m being pushed past my self-created safe guards and dropping all the balls. It’s not a great place to be.
Worry about mental decline has definitely not helped improve my already fragile mood. I’ve just been low lately, struggling to meet the salty adolescent attitudes all around me with patience and grace. It’s hard not to let everyone else’s bad moods bring down my own. I’m just struggling to self-regulate.
I’m also reading Building a Second Brain and realizing that.. I don’t have any real reason to save resources in this way? Can I really be that boring? Do I have no projects that require I save interesting articles to come back to them? I’m honestly struggling to recognize how I could use this system in my own life. I feel like all my bookmarks are for things I want to go back and buy later. And when they are articles I could return to later, I don’t have any real reason to highlight the article and keep a summary for later. Maybe I could write a blog post about them later, but I rarely even do that these days. It’s just making me feel like my life is incredibly boring, like I don’t use my brain to create anything anymore, I just solve problems with stuff and move on with my life.
Oh, and so much for a break in the rain. The 10 day forecast is bumming me out, hard.
But not all is bad at the end of this month. My house looks AMAZING after the house cleaner came. I didn’t even realize how dingy it looked until that layer was removed. I can’t stop staring at my floors! She comes again the day we leave for our trip, and then we’ll have to decide if we want her to return once a month. I don’t think we could afford more than that, at least not while my son is in the $$$ aftercare. And honestly, I think I could keep the house fairly clean in the weeks between, and let the cleaning lady really get at the floors, the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom when she’s here once a month.
That is assuming we can make $300/month work at all. With the way were spending money right now, I’m not sure we can prioritize a cleaning person over other things right now. (These two cleanings are my Christmas present from my mom)
I also love my new vegan leather jacket from Gap. And it was only $35! (Clearance and then an additional 40% off!) A jacket like this can be hard to find, and the fact that I got a new one for so little, and on my first try, is making me unreasonably happy. I’m trying to take the small wins when I can.
Tomorrow is the first day of February. And it has 29 days! That is novel, at least. I think February will be a much better month than January was. Especially if this hormonal fluctuation evens out, and my brain starts working again.
I once heard something like “if you forget where your keys are, that’s okay, we have a lot going on in our heads, but you forget what keys do, that’s when there’s a problem.” I know these things seem really weird and out of character (and inconvenient!), but it’s just that your brain is working on other things. It’s all okay!!
I had a very stressful weekend and Saturday night I went to a giant superstore and just didn’t really think about where I parked my car and when I came out, I realized I couldn’t even remember even a vague descriptor of where my car was (to the left or right? close to the entrance or not?). I had to keep hitting the lock button on my car to make it beep or I never would have found it! It’s just our brains are full of OTHER things.
Hey! I am 42 and I often wonder if I am approaching perimenopause. Mood, night sweats sometimes, anger… Restlessness. BUT. Also found solace in little things: new sheets from Macys. a new sweater…
Oh I know I’m in perimenopause (I have Dimished Ovarian Reserve and all the signs started right when my RE told me they would), I’m just never sure what to attribute to it and what is just regular old “my brain is a dumpster fire” stuff. It can be rough.
I agree with the others – you’re constantly multitasking a million things in your brain. None of those examples seem overly concerning to me at all!
I’m glad you loved the deep clean on your house! We don’t do more than once a month either, but even that helps me be motivated to keep things decent between the deeper cleanings once a month. It’s definitely been worth it to add into our budget for my own happiness. LOL
Steady state hormones makes a world of difference. And the transition period does eventually pass. I assume you are talking to your gyn type doctor about replacement options. They do help A LOT.
The bottom line is YOU HAVE HUGE PILES OF THINGS GOING ON CONSTANTLY so it is hard to pay attention to everything and sometimes your body goes into automatic. DO pay attention to how much sleep you get on a regular basis and if you wake up refreshed or groggy. If you are not, add that to the doctor visit list and make the appointment. Sometimes people are absent minded without being senile and sometimes we need a wake up call to simply remember to present with our own actions. But that was a brutal list! Remind yourself it gets better. You do pass into anew normal.
Best wishes
Sorry you’re shaken by this- I’m sure it’s just a passing, normal thing! Don’t freak out but it’s also good that you’re noticing and paying attention to your body.
I know what you mean about the book and not feeling like all of it applies. I also felt like I really won’t use that technique exactly for “projects” like he is referring to. In fact I haven’t even switched to his PARA system. For me the biggest takeaway was just to move to using Google keep as a basically singular place to store notes to myself, links, ideas, etc. Before I was using it but less consistently, or sometimes just saving a screenshot or a link to my phone. Now I am being really diligent about putting everything in Google Keep. I felt like there were more and more times when I’d see something cool/random and be like, oh, those shoes are cute! Or hmm, that restaurant sounds good… or “that’s a great quote” or “neat idea”… and I’d have the thought that I should remember that but then wouldn’t do anything about it. I’d like assume I would just remember later, but, of course I wouldn’t. So now anytime I have that “I should remember that for later” thought I just automatically pop it into Keep on my phone.
But yeah, I’m with you on the project part. The end dragged a little for me as some seemed more work related and I am using this more for personal stuff.
You have a lot going on. I think a little brain fog is to be expected. But I hear you that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to attribute certain “symptoms” to…. perimenopause, being a woman in general, life?
Is the $300 for your whole house? I ask because what works for us is having our downstairs (where we spend most of our time) cleaned every two weeks but only having the upstairs cleaned about every two months. It’s much more affordable for us this way! I NEED someone regularly or I just let clutter pile up. This method means that every two weeks stuff gets put away!