forgetting stress

Some how...some where...we'll find a new way of living...

I feel like I am swishing away in a washing machine agitating cold molasses. I travel around and around, slowly, bumping into things here and there. Never going straight, never going anywhere. All the while moving very slowly with the kind of effort it takes to roll a Lazy Boy upstairs. This is what extreme sleep deprivation does? This is what stress does?

NPR ran a story today about working mothers, multi-tasking, and some other stuff I forget. The gist of the article was about just that. Forgetting. Multi-tasking, which is ever more prevalent among working mothers, than among working fathers, stresses the body. Humans are meant to concentrate on one thing at a time. Not three. Stress, interferes with the frontal lobe of the brain which works the short-term memory. A light clicked on in my very slow sleepy brain. That light was like one of those energy saving bulbs. You flip the switch and it takes seven long minutes to warm up and illuminate the space in which you can see what it is you forgot right in front of you. 

Maybe multi-tasking is why I can't seem to remember anything these days. I didn't remember Little Miss' preschool tuition check for December. I didn't remember that it was picture day each of the three days the kids had school pictures taken. (Yes, even forgot the day of re-takes.) Sweats suits work right? I forget whose socks are whose and end up wearing my son's socks all day. I forget what is in that five ingredient chicken recipe I am making for dinner plans on Saturday. I forget what day it is today. And I almost forget the point of this blog entry.

Since it is multi-tasking that is robbing my memory, I need to find a way to single-task a bit more. A friend just reminded me today that you can just say "no." She reminded me to be pro-active and push something off my plate and let it just lay there, untouched, on the nice tablecloth you use for dinner company. And she reminded me to not worry about it. Don't worry about wasting it. Don't worry about it staining the cloth. And don't worry that your dinner guests will look at you with that question on their faces, "aren't you going to put that back on your plate?"

So what do I shove off this season? Cutting out the taxi service to and from school probably wouldn't be a great idea. Buying presents instead of making them, well that can be debated. Sometimes craft-therapy is the only thing that keeps me sane. (In fact, these knitting fingers are kind of itching to do some right now.)
Holiday cards...now that might be a possibility. A big family holiday meal? That just might drop off my to-do list any day now. Laundry...probably not getting done with frequency, except the diapers that is. Oh, maybe some more thought on this might just make my stress level subside a bit. And maybe I'll eventually find a way out of the molasses merry-go-round, and regain my memory once more.