Covid19 Brain - Hang in There

When I read a book for pleasure, it is usually a mystery novel.  Before I start the book, I read the last chapter first.  It is an actual thing that people do and I read to do this decades ago.  It doesn't spoil the ending for you, because it doesn't really make sense, but it helps you pay greater attention to foreshadowing in the book.  You pay more attention to the character development of the people name's you remember reading in the last chapter.  For me, sometimes books just get a little scary when I don't see how the hero/heroine are going to get out of this one.  When I read the last chapter and know that somehow they are, well, it just gets me through the scary parts.  Anyway, for me, reading the last chapter actually enhances my enjoyment of the book.  I am defending this for way longer than I should only because each time I start a book, my partner gets offended by this and we have a discussion.  It is the same discussion.  I tell him we would save a lot of time and energy if we just exchanged scripts. 

Anyway, yesterday was a dreary day outside.  We decided to have a Netflix day and watch movies.  Whenever my partner watches a movie, he IMDBs it and finds out the whole plot and even delightful trivia points about the movie. I say nothing.  He doesn't get the irony.  Usually, I find it annoying when he talks all through the movie, telling me the what I just watched and what is coming next, but not yesterday. 

Yesterday, we watched only one movie but three times.  The first time I was waiting for him to tell me what I was watching but he kept silent and I didn't want to ask questions to look stupid, but I couldn't follow the plot and I kept getting some characters confused.  After it was over, I asked him to explain it to me and he couldn't.  He had read everything but it didn't make sense to him.  So, I read everything I could and even the reviewers said the movie was unnecessarily complicated.  The reviews were also all bad.  But, I was in too deep at this point.  To make a long story short, we watched the movie two more times.  We still couldn't get it. We felt so stupid. We just couldn't accept that it was a bad movie, the only conclusion was that we were stupid.

But, I don't think we really are stupid.  I think everyone has a little bit of covid19 brain.  Our brains are exhausted by all the extra information we have to store.  New directives.  New procedures.  New normals.  New everything.  And, especially for us Manitobans. We had gotten so used to "no new cases" for 13 days in July, we thought it was over.  And, now we are setting records for daily cases.  We have to start thinking about this all over again, and school is starting.  It is just a lot to think about.  But, we have to focus.  We have to start thinking again so we don't get careless. 

And, I also realize another way that Covid19 brain has affected me.  I have forgotten to tell my amazing husband has grateful, thankful, blessed I am to have him in my life.  He continues to rock my world.  So, next time I read a book, even though it is none of his business, I will let him lecture me about reading the last chapter first.