Last week Craig and I went to see a financial advisor who is helping us “start over.” I sat in a big leather chair across from the advisor and watched his mouth form words like dividends and accounts and IRAS for a solid hour. I squirmed in my chair and squinted my eyes real hard at him because that usually helps me concentrate, but I did not process a word he said. It was like my brain was a racquetball wall and his words were the racquetballs and they just kept slamming into the wall of my brain and bouncing off, bouncing off, bouncing off. I wanted to quote Nemo and yell, “Look, you’re really cute, kid, but I don’t know what you’re saying! Say the first thing again!” Instead I concentrated on not giggling. I glanced at Craig, assuming I’d see the face that means: I am smiling and nodding but I have no idea what you’re talking about . . . but no fake face. Craig was with our advisor. And so I thought about interrupting with, “Excuse me, I am sure that you are making some really important points, but I am missing them. My brain doesn’t work this way. Is there, by any chance, a poem that would sort of encapsulate your main money-ish message that I might be able to sit and read while you guys finish up?”
A dear friend recently told me that she doesn’t get poetry, because it requires her to use her creative right brain instead of her analytical left brain. I thought, how can you not get poetry? It’s one of the only things I do get.
But in that financial advisor’s office, I figured it out. Oh my gosh, I thought. That’s it. That’s been my problem my whole life. I am missing my left brain.
I do have access to Husband’s left brain, but sometimes he has to go to work or I have to go somewhere without him, and then my right brain and I are left all alone in the big world and unfortunate things tend to happen. Because my right brain and I are thinking about love and clouds and poetry and colors while other people who have their whole brain are thinking about staying between the road lines and picking their kids up from school and avoiding kitchen fires.
Yesterday I had an appointment with a dermatologist to see if she could help me look a little less thirteen. When I walked out of the office after the appointment and looked across the parking lot, I noticed with shock and awe that my van was GONE. A totally different car was in its place. I immediately freaked and dumped the contents of my purse onto the sidewalk to find my phone but obviously, no phone. So I ran after an old man who had followed me out of the office and I said, “Excuse me, sir! Someone stole my car! Can I use your cell phone to call my husband?” And he looked a little scared but he said okay, and handed me his phone. And while I dialed Craig, the old man stooped down and sweetly started picking up the contents of my purse from the sidewalk. This was a kind gesture, but a little awkward since there was a tampon, a bottle of ketchup, and an old apple core in the pile. Thankfully, Craig answered right away. He always answers right away when I’m out of the house because really, you never know what’s going to happen.
I yelled into the phone, “HUSBAND! You are not going to BELIEVE THIS! Somebody STOLE THE VAN!” And Craig said, “Okay. Calm down, honey. Tell me what happened,” which is his standard greeting. And I said, “I went into my appointment and when I came out, the van was GONE and a completely different car is in my spot!” And Craig paused and then said, “Honey. Look carefully. Is the different car a red SUV?” And I said “YES! HOW DID YOU KNOW?” And Craig said, “Because you drove our Explorer, honey.”
Now this development left me in an awkward position because the nice cell phone man was still staring at me. So I said “Okay. Thank you, Husband.” and I hung up. Then I took a deep breath, handed the helpful cell phone man his phone, and said, “My husband is going to call the police and then come pick me up. Thank you so much for your help.” And cell phone man said, “Are you sure you’re okay?” And I smiled bravely and said, “Oh, I’m fine. It’s just a little scary to have your car stolen. You understand.” And cell phone man said that yes, he understood. And then he got into his car and drove away. When I could no longer see cell phone man’s car, I sneaked over to the Explorer, climbed in and drove home. And for the rest of the day, neither Craig nor I mentioned the fake car stealing, because it would be very insensitive to openly discuss circumstances that inevitably arise due to my half brainedness. Obviously, remembering what kind of cars one owns is a very left brain-ish job, and so it is officially information for which a half-brained person is not responsible. Especially when the half brained one is already thinking very hard about how life is just like the ocean and trying to decide whether love is blue or green, which is what my right brain and I were doing all day, thank you very much.
Eventually, I got home and the day kept rolling along. And then, all of a sudden, it was dinner time. I find it unfair and stressful that dinner time arrives every single day. I just think it’s rude and presumptuous. And so I protest by ensuring that dinnertime interferes as little as possible with the natural flow of my day. In this case, I was trying to make dinner while reading, which I do often. So I held my book in one hand and tried to get the pizzas out of the freezer with the other hand, and I smacked myself very, very hard in the face with the freezer door. And now I have a big bruise on my forehead. In the exact same place I had a bruise the LAST Time I smacked myself in the face while reading and trying to retrieve pizzas from the freezer. And now I sort of feel like the morning’s dramatic trip to the dermatologist was totally wasted because now my face looks a million times worse than it did yesterday.
Craig and I didn’t talk about my new bruise either.
And in case you left brainers haven’t figured it out yet, love is green.
I can see myself in you. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself for missing out on details and forgetting stuff. It’s good to know I am not alone
[...] boring. Just mostly boring. And it’s what draws me back again and again to writing such as this. Please don’t skip this one. I would love to know how you assess yourself…left or [...]
OMG! I always say that about myself. Once a psychologist friend asked me, very gently, “Darling, do you even HAVE a left side to your brain?”
I cannot analyze. I do not understand spatial relations, or distances, or directions, or basically anything that makes sense. But I can love like nobody’s business, and since I can think in a billion directions at once, I am a rock in a crisis.
I love my half-brain!
Someone may have mentioned it already, but there is a great commedian named Jeanne Robertson that always refers to her husband as Left Brain and her stories are hilarious…she is southern too so listening to her with her awesome accent makes it that much funnier!
I laughed so hard that my husband insisted that I read him your post. He didn’t really get it, but laughed courteously nonetheless (he’s nice like that). Somehow after reading that I feel a little more normal – or maybe a little more understood. SO FUNNY! Thank you!!
“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”
― Rumi
Love is green. Loved how you wove that in.
Glennon, I freaking love you.
Of course love is green, and blue is the voice – where it is Expressed in words!
Love U.
Hilarious! I’m so glad you laugh at yourself and let us laugh with you, since we all can relate in one way or another!
Apparently, I am also afflicted with two right brains. I once called my parents from college, many years ago, in a hot mess crying that I had lost my car. My dad drove an hour and a half to visit and we combed the ginormous stadium parking lot looking for it. It took hours, we gave up, went back to my dorm to call the police (this is before cell phones) and found my roommate sitting on her bed. “I put your keys in the dish on your dresser. Thanks for letting me borrow it.” Oh. Sorry Daddy. Luckily, he understood because I inherited my all the way right brain from him. Good times.
oh my GOSH! This post was so hilarious! I’m sitting here with tears running down my face, holding my stomach, and the dog just perked up and came over to check, thinking Momma has finally fallen off her rocker!~ I think this struck my funny bone because BOTH are something I would do. “Lose” the car, AND whack myself in the forehead with the freezer door! I’ve just GOT to recommend your blog to my friends on fb! Thanks so much for sharing!
My husband is an engineer (very left-brained), has a family full of very practical, science-loving folks, and works with other engineers. So, he often thinks I must be from another planet. I loved being able to read this entry to him along with, “See, I’m not the only one.” Then I read a few of the comments to him along with, “Other people do that too.”
Thanks for making me feel normal and helping me in my quest to convince my husband that I’m not so abnormal!
Long time lurker, but popping up to say that I have a, well, a fabulous (honest, loving, funny, smart, patient) husband who is a financial planner who would be happy to answer any right brain questions you can come up with. He’d likely even write a song to go along with it. And I can accompany him on guitar. If you need him, let me know. Hang in there, sister!
Without sounding weird, I really wish I could shrink you down and fit you in my pocket. Then take you out when I’m stressed, anxious, overwhelmed or crabby…Like a little dose of Xanax.
I only just found your blog about a month ago but already feel like it’s “home”. It’s my best girlfriend who is always available for advice, understanding, and good laughs (that usually come bursting out because I can so relate!). So thank you!
God’s Best!
Your blog is so funny! I do have a question – who is Dharma? I thought this was your financial advisor, but it sounds like the advisor is a “he”. I am interested in what you mean by “starting over”. Did you get any great budgeting tips? Maybe your hubbie can translate for us into common language! I would have probably gotten caught up in counting ceiling tiles, or how many times the guy blinked or something silly like that in your meeting.
G was playing on the title of the TV show ‘Dharma & Greg’, but long before Dharma was the woman’s name in that sitcom, it was a term for something-or-other in Buddhism. Sorry, you’ll have to look it up yourself-and you should; G chooses her words carefully, so it’s significant-I’m just too tired and overwrought to bother myself right now.
“Dharma and Greg” was a TV series in the late 90′s about a crazy, fun wife and her down-to-earth husband. I think that is what Glennon is referencing. (I hope that’s helpful.)
Sorry, Paul. I didn’t see your comment when I posted, and I don’t see any way to delete mine.
I completely understand this. My husband is definitely the “sense” in our relationship. I’m all the glittery stuff that makes life more fun. I was hysterical over your car being stolen. I know of this girl who had her car stolen and a year later was walking out of work and found it parked in THE VERY garage she had parked her new car in. She called the police to report finding it. The police came, dusted for prints, attempted to determine who’d stolen it, and in the end, found a parking garage ticket inside. Tucked under the visor, the ticket showed it hadn’t moved since a year earlier. THE GIRL HAD JUST FORGOTTEN WHICH FLOOR SHE’D PARKED ON!!! Can you imagine?!?!?! Oh. I can too.
See?! This is what I love about you. I have spent my whole life trying not to feel insecure and “less than” about my ADD, right-brained combo platter in a world where left-brained “productivity” is the currency. You, however, have managed to not only embrace that part of yourself but totally ROCK IT OUT! There is such freedom and Light in you and the way you view yourself and the way that you know you are so freakin amazing just the way you are. I that. I’m getting there…slowly – one baby step at a time. Your blog is a part of that.
“I HEART that”, I meant. Not “I that”.
My car is invisible. I have had to slink back into a car dealership once because of the sheeting rain, and ask where it had been parked by the attendant mechanic. In my defence, it is a 2002 silver Civic sedan, and looked just like every other newer Civic in the parking lot, through all that rain. As a Liberal Arts major Aquarian married to a Chemical Engineer Cancerian, I thank you for this blog entry.
I am a very left-brained person… and can I just say how much I adore this post? Love, love, love it. Thanks for being the bright spot in my morning!
“Eventually, I got home and the day kept rolling along. And then, all of a sudden, it was dinner time. I find it unfair and stressful that dinner time arrives every single day. I just think it’s rude and presumptuous. And so I protest by ensuring that dinnertime interferes as little as possible with the natural flow of my day. In this case, I was trying to make dinner while reading, which I do often.”
This Is Me. (And by the way, I was notorious as a teen for reading a book while walking down the streets of NYC where I grew up. Which was odd back in the day before every other person was using a smart phone or PDA — and might, in fact, still look odd today, reading an actual paper book. I never actually ran into a parking meter, but not for want of opportunities!)
completely AWESOME! I’m with you, how can anyone not get poetry? And how on earth do these financial planners NOT have a simple, flowery, prettily worded, easy to understand laminated copy of what they are telling you to read in plain English while they babble on in their own language that real people cannot possibly understand?
w o w.
HAHAHA! I’m a mostly-right brainer, myself. One time I locked myself and my dad in my car. IN my car. The battery was dead, the automatic locks wouldn’t open, and I thought we would sweat to death that sweltering summer day. I looked at my dad in horror. He looked at me in – well, I thought – horror. I banged on the window and a passerby looked at me. My dad snorted.
And opened the door. Manually.
H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S. But I couldn’t empathize more! Did you know you have a long lost twin Korean sister in Los Angeles, CA?!
It’s nice to know I’m not the only one! A couple of days ago I locked myself and my toddler out of the house. Don’t get me wrong, the keys were in my hand and I was very deliberate in making sure that I was using the right key and that I was indeed at the right house. I tried the front door and the back door, both to no avail. I was pretty sure at this point that our landlord must have gone psycho and changed the locks on us in the half hour I was gone. I had the emergency plan all worked out in my head and was halfway to the neighbors house to enact said plan when my husband arrived. He calmly requested my keys, inserted them into the top lock…oh…the TOP lock…and opened the door. Turns out we have always, since the day we were married, locked the top lock and not the bottom. Oh. I knew that. Can I blame it on the pregnancy???
Yes, you can, actually. Take some more DHA pills, eat some more Omega 3′s. Babies need so much of it they steal it from Mom, and from Mom’s brain. Ah Ha! Pregnancy Brain explained!
I am laughing so hard from reading this post I am crying! That is so totally me too.
Thank you for this… not only do I COMPLETELY understand your feelings with the advisor (I bring my financially smart brother, since both me and husband are incapable of understanding the language they speak) but I am so grateful to know that so many others feel that way about dinnertime and you made me laugh!
OMG- You are Me!!!! And my husbacnd is Craig!!! (Only not quite as hot, but still hot enough!!!!!)
After a day with a sick, tantrum-throwing, one year old, your blog entry (and a bag of M&Ms) is just the ‘medicine’ I needed! Thank you for always being so honest and finding the humor in our everyday – thank you for being you; thank you for being us.
You just made my day! I wish I had written this! This is so me it’s not even funny! And my husband is like your Craig. I just read it to him & he laughed, too. HILARIOUS! Love it!
I, too, do not understand that dinnertime thing. Every. Single. Day. Why can’t we do IV feeding instead?
I literally begged my Mom to read this today so she could see that I am NOT, in fact, the only whack-job in the world! Also, that the correct, PC term is no longer “whack-job.” It is simply, “Righy-Brainy”!! Love & hugs!
G~ I have finally figured out who you are:). You are a smaller, cuter and funnier version of me. I have LITERALLY had the same thought about someone stealing my car, unfortunately several times a month. Usually it is when someone else has driven us, wherever we have gone. I start looking for my car, panic, try to remain calm and then calmly say “That is so strange, I was sure we parked here.” Said companion then delicately points out that we did park here, and that the blue camry is their’s, not my cream SUV. Fortunately the circle of lovies I surround myself with are aware of my Lyme brain and either ignore me or make fun of me. If husband does not pick up one day, dial me. I promise to lead you home, without making fun of you. If I accidently make fun of you, know it is with love. Hugs~
I still haven’t stopped laughing. Hilariousity, for sure.
I always love your blog but I can especially relate to this post. Thank you for being able to express it so perfectly.
I think I love the part about the pizza most. I’m often making dinner while I watch some guilty pleasure show like The Vampire Diaries on my laptop. Or reading my Entertainment Weekly. Love it!!
That is GOLD. Thanks for making my day. (Again.) xx
G – I have not laughed that hard in days….tears are running down my face…I am a nurse and it does require a left brain and no I don’t have a very functional one…and I have literally gotten into cars that are not mine and tried to start them with my keys…one time a lady was already sitting in the passenger seat…not kidding!!! anyhoo I have been taking this insanely difficult chemotherapy course (because at 48 I so need to cram my already full brain with more info)…I passed out during the class…really!!! had to go to the ER and everything…Luckily I am now in the remidiation class and the instructor decided I needed extra time to get it…she even made me these really cool flash cards with colors, pictures and everything…did I forget to mention I have only like been a nurse for 25 years….Love you for being so real…
Kathleen, your comment made me laugh too! A lady in the passenger seat? I can’t stand it! Sounds like a scene from a sitcom or movie!
My mother once got into a car, sat down, strapped on her seat belt, and started talking, only to look up and see a man and his two horrified children in car seats staring at her. And she has done this more than once. So I tell people who pick on me it is genetic.
LOL. Thanks for sharing this. Not so funny when it happens, I guess, but delicious in the retelling!
I would have loved to see the look on that lady’s face!
Oh Glennon, where have you been all my life? The car line has never been more fun than reading your post and being a giggle box while I waited. I have a theory that I actually had more brain, but pushed out some brain cells with each kid, leaving me with enough brain to do some really funny, klutzy, embarrassing, nonsensical things. I’m so glad I am not alone, and I loved reading all the comments. We’re all in this together! I just can’t hear that enough. So you don’t feel so bad about your forehead bruise, I will share with you an embarrassing story of how I looked like Harry Potter for weeks. http://thinkmagnetkids.com/2012/01/21/me-car-door-harry-potter/
G- Your blog is one of my favorite things to do when I have a spare minute to escape the mothering of my four small children, ages 6 and under. Reading your words and the words of the other moms in this community helps me to maintain some sanity in my noisy world. So many of your readers are also entertaining and right on the money when they comment on your words. I enjoy it all so much. I hope you can continue to do what you do.
Glennon, reading your description, I couldn’t help but wonder if you might have some form of synesthesia, a really cool condition where perceptual information gets associated in your brain and one sensory modality elicits a reaction from a completely different sense. One of the most common forms is associating numbers and letters with colours (eg. “G” could be blue, and so you perceive words beginning with “G” as being blue), but there are all sorts of types. Some people smell sounds, others taste sounds or colours. Another form leads people to visualize days/months/years as having a particular location in space. Cool, eh? Sadly, I’m not a synesthete, but there are some in my family and I’m really intrigued by it!
AND, I don’t know if you know this, but research has shown that emotions are processed more in the right hemisphere. When you process something that someone says to you, your left brain takes care of most of the linguistic input (*what* is said), while your right brain attends to the emotions and attitudes being conveyed (*how* it is said). The lab I’m in does all sorts of research on how emotions/attitudes are transmitted through the voice and this is one of the cooler findings, I think.
I have had a migraine almost every day for a month. Laughing this hard is not good for my head. The cat flew off my lap & the dog ran over to see if I was ok.My head hurts, but my soul feels better. Thank you so much for being you & making being half-brained seem more precious than anything else.
well, I would swear that you and I actually share a brain because it sounds very similar to most of my days. But I think we have the same 1/2, so that can’t possibly be right. You don’t happen to be left-handed too do you? Treasure your creative brain, it definitely tells better stories than any of those organized brains could!
My brain works in the same way as yours! And since I’m an English major and am actually taking a poetry class right now, I’m constantly composing poetry in my head while people around me are, you know, talking about unimportant things like the election and the debt crisis…
RED! ( love is red, just saying)
All single women can have hope, because you are living proof that there is somebody for everybody. Your husband has the patience of a saint, but I couldn’t live with you!
That is SO rude Jerry! Kinda funny, but totally rude.
That is awesome. I am so happy that I am not the only person in the universe who has been bruised by my refrigerator!
HAHAHAHAHA. Oh my gosh, that is the funniest thing I have heard all day! I am sorry that you are missing half your brain. The financial part reminded me of the book Confessions of a Shopoholic– the funny thing is, her profession is actually in finance! Ha!
I once got two oil changes in the same day. One wasn’t planned and therefore must’ve never registered in my brain since I was multi-tasking that day. I didn’t realize this until I was sitting in the waiting room at the second place (where I had made an appointment) 6 hours later. THAT was embarrassing. But I never said a word. Glad to know their are others out there like me!
I may be the only person in the world who understands not wanting to look 13. I hated that I looked like a teenage mother at 35 and my on fifth pregnancy. That was then…this is now! Last week I turned 50, but I know I look 35. How do I know I look 35? Because after telling a few people it was my 50th birthday, and hearing, “what, really, you’re 50, you seriously look 35,” I shamelessly started telling people, “guess what, I’m 50″ just so I could hear the reaction. For some weird reason, that perhaps you may only understand, I feel as though I deserve this:-) Happy Day! ~Anna
My Hubs told me the other day that SOME PEOPLE think that numbers are specific colors, isn’t that strange?
What I thought was strange is that he didn’t automatically know that 12 was red and 78 would be a beautiful turquoise. And that it’s also possible to act out numbers, using just really emotive faces. Like 32 would be kind of a “smug but sweet” look, gazing lovingly off into the distance.
Oh and while I was writing this, I forgot to pick up my daughter at the bus stop.
Synesthesia. It’s pretty cool – some people see music.
Oh, Stacie, you got the synesthesia mention in while I was (intermittently) composing my comment
12 is not even red; it’s a beautiful sky blue with fluffy white clouds! And 78 is lime green surrounded by watermelon green! Astounding that some people could not know this…
And 1248 is a brick house with green moss growing on the walls and a blue, fluffy-clouded sky above it! 
And as for love, it is not green, blue, or red… it is gold with silver sparkles!
I can’t imagine living without synesthesia…
Do you ever remember coloring everything rainbow colored when you first discovered the way the order if the colors amazingly play off each other? My 6 year old is there now. While each of my kids reflect a very specific trait of mine, my 6 yr. old shares in my right brained-Ness. I often wonder why “gay people” were lucky enough to get the rainbow to represent them. I want rainbows too…a rainbow is always the perfect fall back when you just don’t know what to color. I think LOVE must be a rainbow because God is love and God is a promise and God sent us a rainbow as a promise of love. But green is my favorite color so I don’t mind that either. Anyone out there NOT like rainbows? I’m just curious if there is some kind of genetic anomoly that would make one not like em.