I didn’t mean to forget. It just happened, again.
My 11-year-old daughter was spending the night with her grandparents last week. And although I’d managed to get her medication filled, I hadn’t remembered to go pick it up. So as she left my house at 3 or 4pm, I told her I’d go by Walgreens and then bring it to my parents’, which isn’t far from our house.
At 10pm, when I looked at my phone after an hour or so of ignoring it, I realized I had two missed calls from my daughter and texts from my daughter and my mom. Was I bringing the medicine? Well, dang. How could I forget something like that in the space of a few hours? Now I had to wait until the morning and my mom thinks I’m an irresponsible fool.
I present to you another side effect of COVID-19 floating through our air: BRAIN DRAIN.
How many things have totally slipped my mind lately? I will try to tell myself to do something and 10 minutes later I’ve completely forgotten that task ever existed. After I didn’t turn in an article due May 1, forgot to send a freelance invoice on April 30, and can’t seem to do freelance work that takes any brainpower whatsoever, I started banging my head against the wall.
It’s worse than baby brain. COVID Brain Drain has depleted me of my ability not only to work in a coherent and timely fashion, but also to plan meals, parent, keep my kids on task in their schooling, and basically care about anything. Let’s not discuss how many hours I’ve spent playing a very old school Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 on our desktop when I should be doing any of the above.
What is it exactly that has brought on the Brain Drain? Maybe it’s the monotony of every day. Of going to bed each night knowing tomorrow we will not be going anywhere or doing anything different. That I will wake up to my four kids fighting and yelling AGAIN. That they are going to want to eat all day long AGAIN. My husband is going to be teaching and having meetings from the dining room table while I try to keep our three-year-old from going in there naked AGAIN. That for the last eight weeks things have deteriorated into basically a state of chaos no magic pill could cure.
I’m sure there’s some rational response to all of this. But I am not known for being rational, so instead I will moan and complain until once again we can leave our home freely. Making an actual handwritten list would obviously be too difficult (and my kids would certainly take it and use it as drawing paper and be flabbergasted that I might be upset about its disappearance).
Perhaps my type-A friends have no idea what I’m talking about. Good for you, dear ones. We need you to keep the rest of us afloat. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here, forgetting where I left my phone and trying to convince myself I can tackle a work project when in reality I feel like I have the brain capacity of an infant.
