Banana Splits and Brain Fog

I left some of my groceries at the store this week—not once, but twice.

And I had to go to the store twice because I forgot to buy everything the first time around.

The customer service lady and I are becoming best friends; I'm honestly considering sending her a friend request on Facebook. She even suggested I look into curbside pickup. I couldn’t tell if she was joking, but I was too embarrassed to admit that I usually do curbside—I just forgot to place the order this time.

But the worst part?

I forgot to buy bananas.

Twice.

I bought everything else for banana splits except the bananas.

Like… how? Banana is in the name. It’s literally the main ingredient. I read my list three times and clearly asked myself, "Is this everything I need for BANANA splits?" Apparently not.

What’s even funnier is I don’t even like banana splits that much—I was making them for the kids. So now I have a fridge full of whipped cream, cherries, chocolate syrup, and three types of sprinkles… and no bananas. Again. The kids think it’s hilarious. They’ve started calling them “Splitless Sundaes,” which, honestly, sounds like a sad metaphor for my current mental state.

I'm always doing absent-minded things like turning on the oven timer for food that never actually made it into the oven, then patiently waiting only to realize an hour later (when the timer goes off) that I’ll be starving for another hour.

I drink instant coffee because it’s the easiest thing to make with one eye open. But the other day, I popped my mug in the microwave and—because my brain was only halfway online—I added a teabag and coffee to the same cup. I drank it anyway, because wasting things drives me nuts. Turns out, it’s actually a drink in Hong Kong called yuenyeung or something like that.

It was gross.

Probably because I don’t use sugar. Or milk. Or any of the things that make it... drinkable.

Or how about checking the mail multiple times a day?

Or at least thinking I did.

Then I get paranoid that my neighbors are watching out their windows, whispering, “She’s at the mailbox again...” I usually pull a few weeds out of the garden just in case they're watching me with binoculars. Might as well look productive, right?

I tell myself multiple times a day:

Get it together. We can't go around clueless every day.

But I’m 46, perimenopausal, and can’t remember anything.

I thought this was just part of getting older—developing a serious case of CRS (Can’t Remember Sh*t). But this feels... advanced. Like, double-checking-you’re-wearing-pants-before-you-leave-the-house level advanced.

And it got me wondering:

Did I actually kill all my brain cells partying like a rock star?

I wasn’t doing drugs, but I drank enough in my twenties to get a small country drunk. Looking back, dancing on tables probably wasn’t worth it. I wish my younger self had known how important brain cells would be later in life. I wish I had even thought about perimenopause. Maybe I would’ve partied less. Maybe I would’ve slept more.

Now, my family relies way too much on my memory.

I’m the gatekeeper of everything:

Keys. Shoes. Bolts. Dog leashes. That one random Lego that’s been missing for months. You name it.

If it’s not in someone’s hand, they assume it’s lost forever. If they set it down for 10 seconds, it must’ve fallen into the abyss.

So how did I, the person with the worst memory in the house, get assigned the role of Household Item Guardian?

And more importantly—how do I quit?

I’m already bumbling through my own daily scavenger hunts. I am not qualified to manage everyone else’s.

Honestly, I don’t have much hope that I’ll ever fully catch up with myself.

After all, my younger self once locked herself in a car.

I’ve accepted the chaos. I embrace the hurricane in my head. I get mad at myself daily and forgive myself twice as much. Because I deserve compassion and love—even when I’m living in a fog, even when the tabs in my brain are always open, and even when I only have half a thought most of the time.

This is me.

And I’ll laugh at myself tomorrow—and every tomorrow after that.

Most importantly:

I’ll write everything down.

Before I forget everything.