Brain Fog Follies

Facebook post from March 31, 2016

One of the "perks" of grief/trauma is that your brain doesn't work the way it used to. Brain fog, they call it. Suddenly your brain becomes this thing you can no longer rely on to remember important things (worse than the normal age-related stuff). Kurt and I could make a pretty funny list if we wrote down all the stupid our brains have gotten us into over the past nine months. 

Here's my latest: a couple months ago I bought tickets to fly home to Virginia since my sister Grete was going to be in town from Switzerland. (Yay!) Lately my dad has been all up in my business wanting my flight info so he can pick me up from the airport. But for some reason, I couldn't find the email with my flight info. (I couldn't even remember what airline I had purchased my ticket on. Again, the little things that would be helpful in mental retention.) I also couldn't find any bills for said flight. I went back to kayak and determined, based on departure time, that I had purchased my ticket with American Airlines and gave them a call. Except I apparently had somehow not purchased said ticket. I know for sure I went through the motions of buying it, but I somehow missed an important Confirm button along the way. This is not what an emotionally-unstable woman should discover two days before her (supposedly) scheduled date of departure. By the grace of God, the same ticket I thought I'd purchased is not too astronomical now- once I apply for the airline credit card to get their added discount. But now as I make my purchase I am hyper-vigilant. The internet will not get the best of me again! So once I'm confident that I've made my purchase, I go about getting ready for the day. I check my emails. All sorts of welcome emails etc from American, but...no ticket confirmation! And my account shows no travel booked! Ah ha! It's them, not me!! Such vindication! So I go and purchase my ticket for the seemingly third time, making sure that I see travel has been booked. Once I'm confident there's nothing more I can do, life can go on. About an hour later, while out with the kids, I check my email and there are my confirmations. Yes, plural. I had now double-booked myself on the same flight. I won't bore you with the number of calls it took to get that straightened out. It was a big number, I just can't remember it.
The other perk of grief/trauma, at least for myself, is that I've gotten more perspective on what is actually worth getting really upset about. There were certainly tears initially, but even before I knew I'd be able to replace the ticket, there was some acceptance of the situation. There is a lot of frustration of not being able to trust my brain fully, but it does help me more than it fails me. By a landslide. And at least I'm able to look back on things like this and laugh about it. In the grand scheme of things, this is the little stuff. I don't want to have to take everything too seriously.

Update: As soon as I had posted this little gem I saw that I had a couple new emails. Went and checked those and, lo and behold, there are TWO requests for me to check in for two different flights tonight. One the flight I'd booked two days ago and one the flight I'd booked two months ago!! The flight they had no record of two days ago! So I'm able to cancel my newer ticket. The benefits there are that I get in a couple hours earlier and I don't have to sit in middle seats on both flights. There's also the added benefit of knowing I'm not totally crazy. Just disorganized with a memory like Swiss cheese.