I cocked something up last week

I've been sad about it since.

It wasn't a little thing, like misplacing my keys or forgetting my phone.

And it wasn't a big thing, like the things I fear: leaving the stove top on, or my hair straighteners.  

It was somewhere in between.

I reacted with shame at the thing I cocked up.  I couldn't even account for it: that was the thing that felt most shameful.

And then I realised I could account for it, but maybe didn't want to.  So I put it out there.

The feeling your brain isn't working well is hard for anyone, of course: it strikes at your identity.  When it happens to me, I feel it deeply.  My brain is important to me.  It took me ages to learn how to use it.

I have written before about my on again, off again love affair with my atypical brain.  We've reached a place of mutual respect, but that took a while.  I found school unrewarding, at times belittling. I wasn't singled out for much praise, and to be fair, I didn't especially deserve it.  I was in my mid-20s, on my second go, when I hit my stride academically.

Until about that time, I was genuinely unsure whether I was thick or not.  With my trademark dorkiness - please don't laugh - I surreptitiously organised to do an IQ test, to try and settle the point.  The local Mensa society was the only option, so I arranged a time, and took the test in a poorly-lit room with another furtive nerd. 

(I have to be crystal clear, this isn't as impressive as it sounds, and is included for the purposes of self-mockery only.  All I got for passing the test was a confidential photocopied booklet with the names and addresses of other local nerds.  And in all of my working life, no one has yet asked me to rotate a shape in my head, or to calculate the point at which two trains will crash.  I think if you can figure that out, you should put your pencil down and do something to stop the ****ing trains from crashing.)

Rod Stewart sang, you wear it well.  And that's nice, but I don't.  I have never fully figured out the ease of a smart person, the confidence – the conviction that I've got something worthwhile to stay. 

My brain remains a work in progress.  And when I cock something up – especially when others notice – well, I feel that progress slipping away from me. 

Perimenopause hasn't been hard for me so far; not the way it's been awful for some of my friends.  But every now and again, my brain skips a beat.  And in that moment, I slip off the space-time continuum for a bit, wondering where I am and what I'm about.

And so I explained this to the people affected by my cock up.  It was mortifying and liberating and mortifying.

And I can't lie, there is still some residual sadness.  But this too shall pass.  All my other cock-ups have.