Being Forgetful (#TransparentTuesday)

After watching me rummage through my purse and pockets on multiple occasions last week, my oldest daughter asked me why I so frequently forget where I put my keys.  I was tempted to answer, "Dear child, on some days, you're lucky that I remember your name, much less the location of my car keys."

Chalk it up to holding too many thoughts in my head at once: deadlines and emails, lecture plans and to-do-lists, groceries to buy and errands to run.  This doesn't even cover the vast amount of mental space devoted to the retention of Where Items Are Located, knowledge that's called upon daily with random requests like, "Mom, where are my socks?"  (Or my jacket, or homework folder, or overdue library book, or piece of mail, or small and obscure plastic item such as the blue Barbie shoe, a sand timer to a board game, or a "googly-eyed ring-thingy," which, impressively, I pinpointed in seconds flat.)

This all leads me to wonder: What am I forgetting because my brain is storing the fact that my middle daughter's toothbrush, for whatever reason, is currently sitting on the fourth step of our staircase?

Yes, I forget things.  This past Saturday, for example, I escaped to Barnes and Noble to grade essays (and drink an overpriced Pumpkin Spice Latte), but I neglected to bring my grading rubrics along.  Hence the scrawled notes on napkins, which I contemplated stapling to the essays, but eventually decided against.   (Might have given too much of a cocktail napkin "call me" vibe, I feared.)

#TransparentTuesday.  Life is real, my dear friends.  Let's not believe otherwise.