No Good, Rotten, Terrible Day

Growing up I was never the best athlete, or the prettiest, or the girl that all the boys wanted to date, or really any of those things that most girls are taught to value.  BUT, what I was, was smart.  I loved to read and I came from a smarty pants family so I learned to value academic and intellectual achievement.  Luckily my parents instilled in me esteem and self-worth, and I look forward to having kids with similar self-worth. Eventually me being smart was exactly why boys (and later men) wanted to date me; they liked my cerebral foreplay.  I hope I don't sound like Little Miss Braggy Peacock, this is just a trait in which I have always felt grounded. 

Lately, though, I feel my mental acuity slipping...piece by piece by piece.  Once someone who never struggled for words, I now often have to pause and search reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyy hard for the word that best conveys what I mean.  What's worse is that I even find myself losing my place in my own conversations (seriously, I had to go back in and interject "conversations" because I had forgotten it in my first draft.).  Armed with an English B.A. I was called the "wordsmith" of my graduating class in my Master's program.  The crowning achievement of my young adult life was when  a professor in my rigorous undergrad  department said my writing was "lucid and powerful."  I cling to that characterization these days as I struggle to even write a blog that adequately expresses what I am thinking.

While I realize that much of what I describe is symptomatic of aging (gasp! dirty tricky insouciant aging!), I can't help but think that two babies under two are not helping the situation.  And of course I chose this. But that doesn't help me when I have no good, rotten, terrible days like I did last week.  I was taking part in training for something that I am actually skilled at doing.  I have done training for it before and it's part of my known skill set.  Still, I did a terrible job when it came time for me to be front and center.  I stumbled early on and never fully recovered.  I was shocked and embarrassed and felt like I did when I was younger and got a bad grade back on a math test.  I even teared up!  I just couldn't believe it.

And, then, something awesome happened.  I saw Evangeline's face.  Seriously.  I don't mean it in a dramatic, overblown way, just very simply: I saw Evangeline's face. Quickly, Wyatt's gummy smile joined hers.   And I relaxed.  I let go of the shame I was feeling and threw it out along with the nagging sense of inadequacy.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  During my inhalation I remembered that my most important work was no longer within the confines of my job, but rather was waiting for me a few miles away.  I still had a chance that day to be brilliant because I was going to pick them up from their sitter's house and get hours to be their mommy--aka my new priority position in life.  And just like that, I exhaled.