Menopause and the Case of the Disappearing Brain Cells
By the Numbers:
3 cups of coffee reheated before I remember to drink one.
7 times a day I walk into a room and forget why.
4 different names I call my child before I land on the right one (including the dog’s).
1 car I’ve misplaced in a parking lot for over 20 minutes.
I used to have a great memory. You know, the kind where you could remember names, phone numbers, birthdays, and where you put your keys, all without breaking a sweat. Then, menopause came along and said, “Oh, that’s so cute. Let me help you forget…everything.”
Now, my brain is like our kitchen junk drawer—completely cluttered, full of random things like old IKEA parts (that’s for another story), mismatched batteries, keys to mysterious locks, a broken pen, a single earring, two old straws, dirty name tags, and that one screwdriver no one ever uses, and somehow the one thing I need is always missing. Did I walk into the kitchen to grab a snack, look for a charger, or reheat my coffee for the third time? Who knows.
Spoiler: I never leave with the coffee.
Confession time: After 18 years of marriage, I still don’t know Hubby’s phone number by heart. Did I ever? Hard to say. Menopause Brain might be taking the fall for this one, but the truth is, if I were ever stranded on the side of the road with a dead phone battery, I’d be the person sobbing at the friendly police officer’s question, “Do you need to call anyone at home?” Because let’s face it, at that moment, all I’d have left is tears, panic, and maybe a vague hope that Hubby will sense my distress like some kind of marital bat signal.
Conversations are a riot too. I’ll stop mid-sentence, stare into the void, and confidently ask, “What was I saying again?” My family just stares back like I’ve completely lost it, and maybe indeed, I have.
And don’t get me started on names. I used to be pretty good at names—girls I went to school with, my old teachers (although it would be pretty hard to forget that my English teacher was called Mr Sentance, with an ‘a’ not an ‘e’), ex-boyfriends, friend's ex-boyfriends, even the neighborhood pets. Now, I call my kids by the dog’s name, the dog by the neighbor’s kid’s name, and sometimes just a mix of all of them, like I’m testing out new band names. Everyone just nods like it’s perfectly normal because, let’s face it, it kind of is now. I remember years ago Mum would call the three of us Josephine-Jonathan-Nicholas—just rattling off all our names until one stuck. We would tease her mercilessly for it, but now? Oh, now I get it. I’ve become her. And honestly, I wish I could call her to say, “Sorry, Mum. This shit is real. You were a genius with that name roulette!”
Menopause isn’t just forgetting where you left your car keys; it’s forgetting where you parked the entire car in the airport garage. It’s waking up in the middle of the night, panicked about whether you sent that email. I’m sure I sent it… but maybe I didn’t…shit. Or trying crossword puzzles and Wordle because they’re supposed to help your brain, but realizing you can barely get two letters while your husband always gets them all. Not fun for anyone, and just another reminder of the ever-growing list of things I can no longer do. It’s also telling your friend a story you already told her yesterday and being offended when she tells you so. “Well, maybe I just really wanted you to hear it again, Janice!”
But the real kicker? You can’t even blame it on being “too busy” because, honestly, half the time I’m just wandering around trying to figure out what I was doing in the first place. Menopause has made multitasking a thing of the past—now, it’s just about trying to single-task without getting distracted by another email from school about strep throat or even worse—LICE! 🤢 Or the new cookies I just got from Trader Joe’s which look delicious but are for kids’ lunches, not my greedy tummy. Or realizing my closet desperately needs to be sorted. Honestly, it’s a miracle I finish anything at all.
Things I Now Do to Try and Remember Everything:
✔ Reminder Notes on my phone – Lists for everything. Every grocery store, packing list for camps and trips, weekends away, reminders to make doctor appointments.
✔ Mark important emails in purple – Because if they’re not aggressively color-coded, they cease to exist.
✔ Putting the detergent cup in the kitchen – A visual cue that the laundry is in progress and should actually make it to the dryer (shoutout to Hubby for this genius hack).
✔ A dedicated spot for my keys – That I somehow still ignore, leading to daily treasure hunts.
✔ Sticky notes everywhere – If it’s not written down, it’s gone forever.
✔ Talking to myself out loud – Sounds odd, but if I narrate what I’m doing, I might actually remember why I walked into the room.
✔ Alarms for everything – Picking up kids, moving the laundry, taking out the trash, otherwise, all lost to the void. Sometimes I will even need a second Alert in case I miss the first.
✔ Telling my family my plans out loud – Because someone has to remember, and it sure as hell won’t be me.
So if you see me in Trader Joe’s looking confused with my shopping list in hand, just know it’s not early-onset chaos. It’s Menopause Brain. And if I end up buying six bags of pickle-flavored chips and forgetting the milk, well, that’s just how we roll now.
Lessons Learned:
Keep your sense of humor—it’s the only thing menopause won’t take away.
Post-it notes are lifesavers; plaster them everywhere.
Forget multitasking; focus on just tasking.
And when in doubt, buy the milk and the chips. You’ll laugh about it later.
If your brain has also turned into a sieve, welcome to the club. What’s your worst forgetful moment? I need to know I’m not alone.
The worst part is that I really can sing all of the words to pretty much every pop song from the 80s, every Smiths song from the 80s and 90s, every theme song to the shows I watched in the 70s and 80s, only mixing up the words I mixed up back then too. (sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name... and you're always glad you came...) But remembering that I opened my phone to call in a food order or make a doctor's appointment? Nope, but that Google Photos vacation memories video was sure fun to watch. Remembering that I walked back upstairs to transfer the laundry instead of walking past the laundry to my bedroom and wondering why I'm there? Not. possible. The good news is that conversations with my girlfriends is like a game of MadLibs where we actually get the right word in the blank because we all suffer the same affliction. No judgement!
It's a pretty good likeness of me minus the muscles and blond hair. But his watch looks lame..... ;)