Family Moab

Family Moab
In Arches National Park

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Stop Catastrophizing

I'm coming apart at the seams, as my mother would say, and dreading Daylight Savings Time's theft of a much-needed hour of sleep.  Two days ago I forgot the word "bookshelf" and stared desperately at my youngest son before stammering that the book he needed was in "those tall things at the end of my room."  If my brain reached top form two decades ago, is this rate of decline expected or slightly ahead of schedule?

The day after I searched dusty mental cupboards for simple vocabulary and found them empty, I opened a real cupboard into my face. I missed vital protrusions like nose and brow ridge but did manage a solid whack to my eyeglasses. Praise be for CostCo, for providing a quick fix (and a cleaning) as well as skorts (on sale) $200 worth of food, and a good price for my son's medicine. What does it say about my personal style that clothes purchased at Costco are taking over my closet and the lawn furniture looks so good that I want to move in?

Adding to the annals of my clumsiness I must confess that I shaved three inches of skin off my shinbone last week and had to go to work at Swimlabs looking like a twelve-year-old who had just learned to shave (at least from the knee down). And a new zit popped out at the very tip of my nose, giving it a shiny red aspect that does not improve my profile and reinforces the image of awkward pre-teen. And please don't tell anyone, but silver hairs have started emerging in my eyebrows and other environs, previously innocuous features that now seem like Benedict Arnold, betraying my true age to the world.

My therapist used to say that I was prone to "catastrophizing" - spinning mentally into the future and predicting dire outcomes based on the trials of today. I plead guilty, but assure you that I'm learning to manage the trait. It helps that I'm not entirely sure how long my brain and body will function correctly, thus limiting my speculation and providing gratitude for the day.

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