Sometimes being the only person who knows where her car keys are goes to my head a bit. I become too proud of knowing just where the tape is, and being able to instantly produce the pliers because I put them where they belong when I used them last. This is such magic to my husband that I begin to think it's magic, too. And I think it can't fail me.
Several days ago I received a call from the owner of a local farm asking if the two chestnuts and two bays roaming the countryside were mine. After all the trauma of catching them and assessing them for injuries (horses are injured if you sneeze on them, especially Thoroughbreds), I stopped to think about how they escaped. For once I didn't think I could blame the unlatched gate on my husband or son. It rested squarely at my door. I had been putting wire on a gate, removing hay from the pen, and responding to my son's cries of "the puppy got away!", and I forgot that I needed to latch the gate. I even recall making a mental note of it.
It feels like such betrayal when my non-ADD brain behaves like my husband's brain. I'm shocked and furious and the world just seems upside down. I don't handle it well. My husband handles it much better when it happens to him. After all, he's used to the world being upside down. And like most people in denial I usually assume it's someone else's fault until the truth stares me in the face. I'm always certain that I cannot possibly have forgotten or misplaced something. People with ADD do that. I don't do that.
I wonder if spouses of ADD people expect more of themselves? Is my uncanny ability to summon a mental picture of anything my husband is looking for and reel off its location really normal? How much mental energy do I spend every day in the effort to be the opposite of my husband and son?
I'm tired. I'm going to bed now.
-P
2 comments:
It's called being forgetful, dear. It happens as one get older.
Sadly, your forgetting something is not only normal, it's expected. You are under the stress of remembering everything for everyone, and being the locating device for everyone's forgetfulness. Sometimes, now and then, it's gonna fail you, and it will be just as big a shock every time.
How do I know this? I have ADD. My son has ADHD. My wife, god love her, was in your position - she knew where everything was, could answer every question, could solve every problem ... and yes, I did think it was a form of magic. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how she not only remembered our schedule, all our committments, what we were supposed to do when, but also could tell me where my keys, my wallet, my shoes and the book I lost were. That was magic. That is the gift that women like you, who live with impossible people like us, have, and it is an amazing gift that is the epitome of overcompensation and adaptability. It's what makes people like you so cool.
And it's what makes people like me so very very lost when we lose people like you :-(
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