[a case of the dumbs...]

Dear future smart lady,

Growing up (as you well know), I was fairly clever.  I was in extension classes for primary school so I wouldn't get bored and start fighting people (ha).  I passed tests in high school without trying too hard.  Heck, I was never the dux of the school or even a prefect but I learned fast and held information in my head with relative ease.

I was nothing special, not by a long shot and I had my share of failures.  I could do nothing physical well - ballet at 7 years old was a nightmare because I couldn't skip on my tippy toes (no toes and all that...)  In phys ed. I was the last one picked, and sat out for most of the classes actually but that's no biggie - I'm not scarred for life or anything. Far worse things have happened to far better people.

In nursing school I passes with average grades.  A little unusual for me - I had to try in order to do well.  I am lazy by nature (not something I'm proud of but I'm too lazy to do anything about it), and so I passed and became a nurse without ever failing a paper but on the flip-side I never made an A.  I didn't try to.  My patients have never asked me what grades I got and I never told them.  I'm better at the practical stuff anyway, and they seemed happy enough with my bedside manner and skills.  I still maintain that in a job like nursing, there's no point getting A grades if you can't meet with someone in a vulnerable position and enable them to feel heard and understood.

 The nursing thing is maybe a whole other post - suffice to say I seem to have lost my mo-jo and I'm not sure where to go with it, but it'll keep.  For now it keeps me in the manner to which I'm accustomed.  Which brings me to my next point. 

It's just that I've become very... dumb.  

Well, either that or I suddenly hang out with very clever people (I don't think that's the case...  hehe).  Or the other option I was thinking of is that I've become cleverer, and therefore am realising how thick I am now.  Tricky huh?  

It's just that lately I'm the girl in the group who always has awkward encounters with people in stores.

I'm the girl who doesn't know where something is on a world map.

I'm the girl who laughs thirty seconds after the joke has been told.

I'm the girl who sits quietly in the corner, unable to join in with a conversation about politics or current affairs.

I'm the girl people look at with blank stares, as if I am speaking a different language.

I'm that girl.  You know the one.

If I didn't know better, I'd think I had pregnancy brain, or some kind of medical condition.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, just surprised amazement.  How did this happen?  This sudden realisation, and the disappointment in myself.  Also, how do I stop this?  I'm reading current affairs websites, studying maps, thinking before I speak, making jokes, brain exercises.  Nothing.  I remain a thicko.

I always like to laugh at myself, and I'm a bit of a storyteller I suppose, but when it gets to the point where the people you are with are laughing at you, rather than with you, I wonder if perhaps toning it down a notch is required.  There is a fine balance between laughing at oneself, and the ability to still be taken seriously.  I gotta say, it hurts a little when the line is blurred.

This post doesn't have a happy ending yet, my dear future smart lady.  I hope that I can cultivate some element of smartness, and soon.  Before I get a name for myself as a total eggo and lose all my friends.  

Anyone have a smart pill?

Love, current small brain me.  xx