How are you?

There are two types of response to this question and they are the opposite of each other

1 The first type of response to ‘How are you’ would, of course, be ‘I’m fine.’

This usually fools anyone but those who are in the know. People who are in the know know that half of the answer was omitted and that ‘I’m fine’ really means ‘I’m anything but fine.’

2The second type of response I have been using lately is reserved for those who are in the know. If anyone happens to be brave enough to ask, I tend to quite spontaneously and sincerely respond with ‘I’m trying not to lose my mind.’

Oh my…

My mind is lately behaving as if it would like to divorce itself from me. It clearly doesn’t enjoy sharing this life, the challenges and pitfalls, with me. It thinks it’s a bit much. OK, no euphemisms, let’s be honest here — way too much.

So I have to keep my mind on a very short leash and, I hate to admit, even give it an occasional beating to whip it back into shape. It doesn’t like that just as much as I don’t like doing it.

To prevent the need for this, I try to reason with it the best I can, but it stubbornly refuses to cooperate. Instead, it regresses and starts acting like a 5 year old who didn’t get enough sleep for the last 5 years.

My mind knows damn well that we need to work. We need to work regardless of how tired we are, regardless of the fact that we didn’t have any vacations for well over a decade and that I had to check the dictionary to understand the — to me completely lost — meaning of the word holiday.

It knows that the deadline for the launch of my new book is approaching fast, but instead of making it easier for me and helping me out, it starts screaming like a baby and demands ice cream in the middle of work.

‘It’s Sunday, the stores are closed and we have no ice cream. You cannot have ice cream today, maybe we’ll get some tomorrow,’ I try to explain. In vain. Before I know it, it steals the car keys and races off to the nearest gas station.

The next thing I know, we are having a giant bowl of iced coffee with heaps of ice cream. All this while I’m desperately trying to lose weight and my mind knows that too.

But then my mind is also a master manipulator. ‘Look at how cranky you are,’ it would say. ‘That’s because you are starving. How are you going to finish the book when you keep starving yourself?! Let’s have some fun!’ It says that giggling like a freaking schoolgirl. Who could resist?

Finally, as the last nail in the coffin, it adds, ‘I cannot function when we are starving. It’s either ice cream or I cannot finish the book, the choice is yours.’ Of course it knows all to well that this has nothing to do with my choice and that I have no say in it. It’s its choice and I’m forced to comply or else.

Else meaning, in this case, that it will boycott writing my book. In the end, I gave up. For now. And so it won and we had that damn ice cream just so that I could keep my mind and prevent it from completely deserting me.

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