Column: My mind has a mind of its own

So my husband tosses a dime down on the kitchen counter and says, “Tell me 10 things you’re thinking right now!”

Instantly, I rattle off 10, unrelated thoughts, one after the other.

“Wow.” He exclaims. “You’re thinking all that right now?”

“Yep.” I answer. “Do you have a quarter?”

He laughs, turns and walks away. He’s not giving up the quarter. He knows I could rattle off 25, just as fast.

It’s like a Think-A-Thon. Ever have one? My mind has them all the time, mostly at night. Usually, it’s right after my head hits the pillow. I close my eyes and my mind is like, “Whaaaat? You’re not going to bed yet, are you? I’m not tired.”

“It’s bedtime.” I say. “Are you crazy? What are you thinking?”

My mind jumps on the question. Immediately, it spouts off the “To-Do” list I ignored all day. It goes on with all the stuff I should do, shouldn’t do and want to do, all the wrong foods I ate and all the right ideas for stories, which I don’t want to get up and write down.

“OK.” I say to my mind. “If I crawl out of my cozy, warm bed and write all this stuff down, will you leave me alone?”

No response. So I wake up and write it all down. It works. Silence.

My dad always said he did his best thinking at night. He’d wake up with clever ideas. That must be when our minds process all the gunk we throw at it during our waking hours. They process it, filter it, toss it back to us and then they’re free to be brilliant, free to breathe and free to THINK.

I’ll admit, there are nights I’d like to lose my mind, but I’m sure it would find me. After all, it follows me everywhere. And even though my mind is sometimes my worst enemy, nagging me about this and that, I accomplish more because of it than not.

Now, I’m sitting here thinking, “I need to wrap this column up. I need a Think-A Thon.” And there’s not a thought in sight; My mind is nowhere to be found. It’s gone missing.

I could rap a turkey song. Or blab about wrapping presents. Or shout to myself, “That’s a wrap!”

But then you’d think, “She’s lost her mind.” And guess what? You’d be right.

This story was originally published November 9, 2015 at 11:20 AM with the headline "Column: My mind has a mind of its own."