Mental Pause Moment #5: MADD: and this has nothing to do with drunk driving

I have noticed that as I slip into menopause the hardest thing for me to face is the fact that I am constantly distracted. I have, what I have come to term:

Menopausal Attention Deficit Disorder

I used to be able to stay on task pretty well. I mean I wasn't ever the most organized person in the world, but I never got distracted in the "ooh shiny" kind of way that I do now.

Let me give you an example of what at simple task is like for me. Say I decide to do a quick tidy up of the bedroom, should take no more than 1o minutes tops. I start by turning on the computer so that I can turn on some music, because I always work better with music on. Then while ITunes is loading I just spend a few minutes checking email, just in case I got a response from a friend that I emailed last night about something. Twenty minutes later I get back to starting the music and begin to pick up the things that are cluttering the floor, one of which happens to be a shirt I wore just the other day, that has a rip in it. I figure that I had better fix the rip or I will never remember that it is there and then while it is going through the washer it will get bigger and ruin my favorite top, so I get out my sewing kit and fix the hole, another 15 minutes. Then while I am putting the sewing kit back I notice that the towels on the shelf of the linen closet are all messed up, so I organize them because the next time someone takes a towel they will all fall and no one will bother to pick them up. Another 20 minutes wasted. By this time I have forgotten what I was doing in the first place and it is two hours later.

Don't give me strategies to get more organized, I have tried every system on the planet. Lately I have just learned to live with this. I get done whatever gets done and am happy with the result.

If you want to hear a funny story, you aught to hear about the time I ended up doing the laundry topless because I decided that I might as well throw in the shirt I had on while I was doing a tan load. I could just run up to the bedroom for another shirt, I was all alone in the house at the time, or so I thought . . . my poor son. I was scared half to death, but he may be scarred for life.

Pax