Scrambled Memory and Taffy Pulls

Femara scrambles my radio frequencies.

The intuitive walk-search, you know, when you walk around the house looking for your keys but you don't really retrace your steps, you just let your body wander until "Oh! THERE they are!"

It's broken.  Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows.  

How about the grocery store for a new bag of coffee?  Leave the bags of missing coffee for another day.   If 30-minutes of circling the kitchen doesn't produce results, it's time to leave it and move on.

After working all day in my office,  I'm trying to figure out if I am coming in to work tomorrow.  I pull and pull -- It's taffy, immersed below my consciousness. 

Today issss...  Today issss...  Today.    Today isss....

Take a break.  Breath.  Relax.

Today isss....  Today issss...  

Walk around a bit.

Today isss...    

FRIDAY!  

It pops free.

FRIDAY!  Today is Friday.  I'm not coming in tomorrow.

Delphine is spending the night tonight at ....

Her name is......   Her name issss.....

Her name is...

Her name is....

Sigh.

I head out to pick up Delphine from her first day at work.

20 minutes later, I try again.  Her name is....

Her name is....

SOPHIE!  

I finally dislodge it, only after I carefully visualize the faces of each of Delphine's friends, mentally name them, and then finally work my way to a name for Sophie's face.

The distractability has most certainly always been there.

And there is definitely the menopause-y short term memory and name recall issues I've gotten used to.

And, yes, I know that when I'm stressed, my processing speed can now roll right into a stall.

But this is different.    I feel vindicated -- absolved of that period where I couldn't keep three things in my mind at once.  When my favorite colleague for over ten years sat next to me -- and her name would not come.  When I would leave the campus to pick up a preschooler in order take him to his afternoon daycare, only to find myself at home, wondering why I drove there.

The hormone drugs really fuck with me.

I'm not ungrateful.  I'm just sayin'.

And if you try to tell me about your memory issues or how we all get these episodes as we get older or your own struggle with menopause in response to my sharing, I'm going to be holding back a fuck you and smiling tightly.

Time to try small meals and frequent exercise.

And maybe a nap.