Stupid Anonymous
April 18, 2010
Hi! My name is Debbie, and I am stupid. Or maybe I’m in some sort of stupor. I’m not sure. All I know is nothing but the most brain-numbing, chore-related and totally unimportant thoughts stick in my brain anymore. I need therapy! I need support! I need a twelve step plan for controlling my stupidity! No, wait. Let’s make that a one step plan that I can write in huge block letters on poster board and place strategically in every room in my house. And in the car. And on my purse. And on billboards all around town.
I forget I’ve started something cooking on the stove unless I stand right there staring at it, which I can’t seem to make myself do. I could fold some laundry in the couple of minutes it will take for the whatever to start boiling or sizzling! I could get the mail in! I could feed the dog! I could read a page in whatever book I’m reading! What I can’t do is remember to come back and turn the heat down, before the stench of burned food makes its way to my nostrils.
I forget to pay bills or I pay them the wrong way. This is bad. It’s especially bad when I send the electric company the balance in the checkbook instead of the amount billed to me. It’s nice to have a credit with them for a couple of months, but really, it would be better if I had that money to spend on food and gasoline.
Today I forgot to go to a bridal tea. I was so proud of myself (it’s always a bad sign when I let pride in the door) that I actually picked up the gift two weeks before the event. It was even gift wrapped, so all I had to do was write a short congratulatory note and sign my name. The invitation was on the refrigerator as a reminder, the time was noted on the wall calendar, I had sent my Facebook RSVP just yesterday. I even had a little talk with myself about not forgetting about it overnight. Obviously, I didn’t listen to myself, or look at the refrigerator or calendar. I also didn’t place the gift in the middle of the floor where I would trip over it several times in order to make reminder bruises on my body. This was my undoing. Surely bruises and contusions would have reminded me to attend this happy event!
So this is what I want to know. Am I headed swiftly down Perpetual La La Land Lane, or is this just a jog in the road that is leading me into Aged Wisdom Circle? Do I need to take some kind of pills or do I need to simplify my life somehow? And if I need to simplify, please, someone out there, tell me how! It’s not like I lead a life of high powered meetings, exotic (or even humdrum) travel and myriad, sensational social events. And I don’t have even close to 19 children. So what has my brain so clogged up that I can’t remember how to live the insipidly normal life I’ve heretofore managed to lead?
I’ll tell you what it is. Hormones. That has to be it. That has been my answer to every mysterious aberrant behavior I’ve experienced in the past, from hysterical laughing fits to crankiness the like of which you don’t even want to hear tell of in these here parts. That also explains the odd language usage that pops out from time to time.
Anyway, I’m hoping that these highly stupid hormones will either get an education or leave home soon. I’m thinking the latter option will win out. I just hope that when they leave, they don’t forget to take stupid with them. Stupid without the hormones would leave me with no excuse.
So let’s get spiritual for a minute. These three scriptures may not cure my stupid, but they might keep me from jumping off a mental cliff into deeper weirdness.
Romans 12:2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” So I need to follow God’s way of living, not the self-centered way of the world in order to keep my head on straight. That means I need to be sure to get my daily dose of God’s word and learn from other believers.
Colossians 3:2: “Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.” Oh mercy! This is a hard one. I need to keep my mind dwelling on God and what He has for me, rather than on all the stuff the world has to offer. That would certainly simplify my life.
I Peter 4:7-8: “be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” Okay, so don’t get so caught up in the stupid, that I forget to pray, and maybe if we all love each other deeply, we can overlook the stupid when it happens.
Well, that feels better! May the following poem remind each of you to pray for my dear husband during this season of stupid.
> # A MENOPAUSAL MOMENT
> # (BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE TRAVEL CHANNEL)
> A strange hysterical fit-
true watershed moment-
prompted by the crooning
of a Venetian gondolier
on the Travel Channel,
washed over me the other night.
Tears dripped single file
off my nose
sogging my popcorn
as the murky water of the canals
slapped in rhythm
to the Italian rhapsody
across my age-prickled mind.
Magnetic television waves
tugged at my iron enriched blood
until I found myself pressed
bosom flattened
against the flickering screen
screaming like an ostracized banshee,
awakening the man of the house.
“What is it, now?” he asked.
“A hot flash? A mood swing?
A psychotic need to disturb
my every peaceful moment?”
“Why must everything be about hormones, with you?”
I answered sweetly, mopping up mingled tear-sweat.
“I just need a break from this rancid life
of vapid humidity and waiting for death.”
A trip to Baskin-Robbins, then?” he smiled.
He knows me so well.
If anyone wants to join me for the weekly, or maybe its monthly, meetings of Stupid Anonymous, feel free. I don’t remember the time or place, but you’ll know us when you see us.