One baby step toward leaving fear behind

 A significant part of my issues is brain fog. There are so many things I used to be able to do effortlessly. Now, when I write or read something, I double and triple check it all. Even then, I am apt to misunderstand it the next day, or realize my mistakes at a later time, much to my embarrassment and dismay.  

Today, I signed into the Skype app to see if I could chat with my daughter. The page shows past chats, including dates and times that they occurred. The date shown did not correspond with my memory and right away I became upset. It felt like life had somehow happened without me, which makes no sense, but this is what I experienced in my gut. It is no fun. Reality can really be thrown when you have an uncooperative brain.

This type of thing has happened often in the past few years and my instant reaction is one of fear. Not just unease, but fear. As if I no longer fit into the world and its patterns and could very well be obliterated somehow due to this. In a very concrete sense, if I get a date or time wrong, I could be stranded somewhere, expecting someone to pick me up who will not show because I misunderstood it all. But even when the event has already happened and I look back and see dates and such which I do not recognize as my reality, I still feel that fear.

Today, I made one baby step to change that. Normally, I deeply investigate, to the best of my ability, what went wrong, how I made a mistake, what truly occurred, and try hard to just fit this complex puzzle into my brain. I also look to blame someone besides myself, a truly nasty habit. This time, however, I made a deliberate choice to shut down the Skype app without investigation. I let it go. If it shows I got a call that I do not remember, if their dates don't correspond with my reality, that will just have to be ok. I realized it was all in the past, that I am safe, and that I do not truly need to waste my limited energy on figuring it all out.

Damn, it felt good. To X out the screen. To not engage. To turn immediately to something good that was happening here and now. 

It was indeed a baby step but it felt like a huge leap.

-GG