3.09.2017

Can you spell h.y.p.o.c.h.o.n.d.r.i.a.c?

The scariest thing just happened to me.  Well.  Maybe it isn't THE scariest thing.  Everyone is safe, Grandma, don't worry.

The thing is I know this happens to people all of the time.  But for a minute I'm allowing myself a moment of worry.  Which I know I shouldn't do.  But I'm a parent.  Worry is my middle name.  Chalk it up to being a busy, multi-tasking woman.  Chalk it up to being human.  Or....worry.

I work out of my dining room because the office in the basement is lonely and it doesn't afford me the ability to keep a watchful eye on my children.  I set up shop in the dining room and this is where I spend a sound forty three hours of my week.  In the midst of that I also run the household.  Kids up, fed, dressed, teeth, catch the bus, teach a fitness class, and then back to my perch here in the dining room.  The doorbell here and there, then lunch for the little guy, then a call from Boss #1, then conference call with Boss #2.  And so on.  You get the picture.

Tonight, I am switching from mode #1 to mode #2 and getting a sale set up to begin tonight at midnight.  I pull up the email with the CDs for the sale, I quick stop to put meat on the stove to start lasagna for dinner.  Thankful for the no-boil Barillas in the cabinet.  Then I sit back at the computer to run through the email and pull up the sites I'll need to make the sale arrangements.  Check on the meat.  Back to the sale.  Find the email with the pertinent details, hit "print."  Check on the meat.  Add the sauce.  To the printer, no email.  Back to the computer to look at why it did not print.  "Printer is offline".  I click, "print test page".  Go back to the kitchen to move on to the next step with the lasagna, but the sauce isn't ready.  So I turn to go back down to the printer.  I turn the corner toward the office and then it is blank.  Gone.

Why am standing in the hall?

Totally blank.  Then I get a little bit nervous.  Trying to think why did I come down here.  What is down here that I need.  Laundry?  I turn around to go back to the kitchen hoping something there will trigger why I walked down the stairs.  Nothing.  Totally gone.

I check the sauce, sit down at the computer to try and fix the printer and then it hits me.  The test page.  I already printed the test page and that is why I went down the stairs.

I know that this happens to everyone.  I know it happens to me all the time - that oh I forgot my phone minute or the I left my glasses downstairs or forgot to bring the mail in.  But I swear to you tonight it just felt awful.  Like the purpose was totally gone.  Vanished.

And so then I try to calm myself down with logic.  Mel you're running a million directions.  You're mind can only manage so much.  But then it's still there.  That minute when I totally lost it - went totally blank.

I thought writing it down would help me feel better.  But guess what?  It didn't.  I'm going full blown hypochondriac on the blog right now.  People forget things all the time.  Where did that piece of information go?