Coming Out Of The Fog

“I'm not confused, I'm just well-mixed” - Robert Frost

Well-mixed? OK, let’s go with that. I don’t know what it is, but lately, I am in a complete fog. It cannot be age. I refuse to even consider that the mind can start to go in the forties. No way, it's not that. Calling the children by the dog’s name isn’t listed anywhere as a sign of age-related memory issues. Not that I do that, nope, never.

So what does that leave? Maybe I have Attention Deficit Disorder? I don’t think so. Until I had children, I was a highly-focused person. I could do one task or 50, and finish them all on time and correctly. I had jobs that required this level of concentration, in addition to a pretty full schedule and this was all before I had my beloved Crackberry.

And truly, it's not like I have six or seven kids like some of the families I grew up with. I have three, and one doesn’t even live at home anymore. I think just by nature, most children have the attention span of a gnat. It’s not a problem for them, it’s the parents that have a hard time.

Children live in the moment, and yes, most control that when they have to. But when they don’t have to be focused on school or homework, buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride. In my house, we have two specific times that I’m certain kill off more of my brain cells than that weekend I spent in New Orleans.

For an hour in the early evening and an hour in the morning, my kids are like monkeys on acid. It is lovingly referred to as the manic depressive hour, and there are mere seconds separating the mood swings. Of course I’m confused, I start and end every day like a hockey ref on crack, assigning penalties both major and minor and just wishing I could send everyone to the showers.

Is it just that I have a busy life? Oh come on, everyone is busy. And compared to some people I know, I have it pretty easy. I’m not trying to manage projects with employees on three different work shifts. I don’t have a long commute to an office with a desk piled high with legal briefs and TPS reports.

Actually, I don’t even have a desk. I have a laptop. That’s my entire office. That and my phone. It beeps and tells me what to do and where to be, and if I could give it a Christmas bonus for a job well done, I would. I do regret that I often don’t get enough time to see friends. Unfortunately there is no tech gadget that can make the schedules of busy people mesh perfectly.

I’m certain that the time change also contributes to this fog.  As tech savvy as I am, one clock always gets missed, usually the one in the car and I’m out of sync for days showing up at places an hour early or late depending on the time of year.

Even though I am not good with numbers, I do know one thing. We are NOT gaining an hour. The day is still 24 hours long — no one is getting more time every day. We are just putting the clocks back to where they should be when we moved them in the spring. And back then we didn’t lose an hour, we just set the clocks so more of the sunlight is at the end of the day. Let’s not bring math into this, we are not time traveling.

The weather is another issue. I think climate change really means that Mother Nature is hormonally unbalanced and has gone completely off her nut. One week we have two inches of snow and I’m chipping ice off my windshield, the next week it’s in the seventies. And that was in October! How am I supposed to know what to wear? Growing up I was taught that you shouldn’t wear white shoes or cropped pants after Labor Day. I hope the fashion police didn’t see me in my white flats and capris the other day.

And finally, it doesn’t help that the stores have completely messed with my concept of the seasons. Back to school sales are in July. Give me a break, I’m still on the beach in July, dunking my toes in the surf. I don’t want to buy backpacks and notebook paper.

Halloween candy can be found right next to the Christmas decorations. Seriously? Who in their right mind wants to hear Christmas music when they are still raking leaves? Not for nothing, I haven’t even gotten my Thanksgiving turkey yet, Santa can put his butt right back on that sleigh until I am good and ready to deal with him.

So here I am, running around in the dark, unsure of what time it is (or sometimes even what day it is) in the mad rush to get it all done. But I find myself not really caring that much if I’m confused, or as Frost wrote “well-mixed.”

There are worse things. Stuff gets done, or it doesn’t and the world still turns. Everyone is busy, everyone is scattered and crunched for time. I understand it and so do my friends and when the dust settles, time will be found. Until then, unlike James Bond’s famous martini, I may be stirred, but I will not be shaken.

About this column: Brenda Kelley-Kim is a Marblehead mom and a self-professed "loud mouth."