"Of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most."
I don't know who said that first, but I quote it often. Especially in times like now where the demands of my life are pressing and relentless, and my ability to hold on to random pieces of information has turned to mush that sloshes around in my brain.
I wouldn't mind so much if it were just misplaced keys or glasses, even though that's annoying and makes me late sometimes. I wouldn't mind if it just made me look stupid, because everyone can use a dose of that from time to time. Keeps us all on an even playing field.
What I do mind is when the sloshing noise in my head, and the blank look on my face, and the mix ups on my calendar keep me from being able to let the people in my life know how much I love them.
Being forgotten is awful. It says things about you that seem very true but aren't. Things like "you're not important", "you're not special", "you're not loved". At least that's what I hear when it happens to me, and it's not very much fun. So when it's me leaving someone standing outside waiting for a coffee that's not going to happen, or losing an e-mail in the abyss that's my in box, or double booking a team breakfast, or missing a birthday....I hate that.
Puts me in overdraft, sort of. Like my bank accounts are on low. And for me right now?.....It's like all my accounts with almost everyone and anyone in my life are in the red. Events of my life have made huge withdrawals in the grand scheme of things. And even though I can rationalize that it's not really my fault and doesn't reflect on me, on days like today, it still feels rotten.
So I woke up this morning and sat up in bed and turned my hands upward. "You are God and I am not. Please be sufficient for all the true and honest needs of my friends and my people. Be for them what I cannot be today. Restore the souls of those from whom I have withdrawn too much. Help me love them with the unlimited reserves of Your love, far and away abundant, filling up and out where I am overdrawn. Help me give my mind again and again to You to do with as You see fit, to use it to love and think and serve and solve the things and people and situations You, in Your wisdom have given to me to be and do. Forgive my failings and how I can make the forgetting all about me. Grant me the peace of mind You've promised as I find perfect peace in a steadfast mind that trusts in You."
This morning I am taking the morning off. I will go play with my granddaughter and think about nothing else except Dora and the spider game and Pink Kitty.
Okay....let me read this over again. Wait. Where did I put my glasses?
1 comment:
What probably bothers me the most about my forgetting is my inability to keep things together. I don't know how many times I have lost my winter hat, gloves, pencil case, keys, wallet, a book I desperately needed to finish a project, etc, etc. Sometimes it makes me so made. I often ask Renee to help me in the hunt and we usually end up finding it but only after I have sufficiently chided myself.
Perfectionists do this to themselves. We are more often harder on ourselves for the mistakes we make than anyone in the world would be.
I really enjoyed reading your prayer. I agree that this is the place to start when feeling overwhelmed by forgettfulness and the shame of what it might imply.
Another thing that I do is really try to see the humour in it all. I mean . . . seriously . . . the idea that I can juggle all the balls I juggle and not drop a few here and there borders on insanity. Sometimes it helps to see myself as the juggler who clumsily drops balls. It wasn't part of his act but it sure made the audience laugh!
I know this is hard to do when you miss an appointment with someone but if you can - it helps!
Oh, I think it was Mark Twain who originally said the quote you mentioned on your blog. Not sure, but I think it was him.
Ahhhh . . . . there goes that ball down the hall. Oh well.
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