As Norah Ephron said: I feel bad about my neck.

I have always hated my neck. Even when I was in high school, and I was tiny and could get up from a chair without making a soft groaning sound with absolutely no real appreciation for it – I hated my neck. I have a soft little jawline. It is cute and soft, like a kitten, and if I weighed 80 pounds (not recommended) I would still have a kitten for a neck.

And now, as a woman of a certain age, it has become more like two kittens and perhaps a turkey under there. Because I am somewhat sad about this, I recently looked up “what to do about my neck” which offered a whole LOT of options, but mainly they all suggested sucking my neck out of my neck.

This seems a bit excessive.

Micro-needling seemed… less awful? I mean… it’s just a bunch of teeny tiny needles stuck in my neck. So, that’s fine. Totally fine. Evidently the whole premise of micro-needling besides being really pokey, is that it injures the skin, which causes it to heal… better?? I guess?

And THAT means.. if you break something, sometimes the healing process makes it STRONGER.

I have a hard time with this because, generally, my children break stuff in my life. And the broken stuff is valuable, lovely, fragile and usually highly sentimental. Children are good at targeting stuff like that. And fixing these items involves super glue. And THAT means I get glue all over my fingers and the final product looks like a second grade art project.* But I do feel, after the glue is thoroughly applied to my fingertips, that I could perhaps go rob a large bank and no one would be able to identify me because I don’t have fingerprints anymore. I’m a ghost.*waggles fingers in mysterious criminal way*

(Welcome to my brain, people.)

So: I am now going to swerve from minimally invasive facial procedures to writing. Because that is how the Dana do.

I have had, in the past few months, a lot of broken brain moments. I multi-task. I start something and then get up and walk around and start something else. Most of my writing moments have lasted about ten minutes and then I’m off trying to research microneedling. I sputter and idle and stop. I start, but with a lot of grinding of the gears first. I stare off into space with such blankness that I compete with cows.

My brain is tangled, ya’ll.

And as the decline into using cars and cow metaphors for my poor tired synapses increases, I just felt like I had no real choice in the matter. That “frazzled Dana” would be the New Dana and I just had to accept it.

Like New Coke, I was doomed.

I DON’T LIKE BEING DOOMED.

This blog post will be Part One of what I figure out to help my poor little brain get stronger. I’m not attempting a click-baity situation where at the end of the blog I’m just about to tell you something huge and I end it a major cliffhanger. We’re not Game of Thrones here. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? If I threw in a lot of dragons and really dark scenery and icky “me too” moments all over the place. Weird.

Anyhow. The main takeaway today is that my brain, much like my body when I started running again, can get stronger. And here is the first thing I am trying to do to help it:

I’m going to break it a bit. To make it stronger. (If you are as thrilled as I am that I finally made my point here, I salute you.)

Ya’ll. This is hard. I am a mom, first of all. Multi-tasking is our survival skill. All moms know what it’s like to hold a baby and kick the washer door shut and press START with their elbow while getting a snack for the toddler with the other elbow and with a third elbow letting the dogs out. Multi-tasking really leans on the elbows of life, evidently. I am so glad I have them. Thank you, elbows.

But for now? I am going to let you go, elbows. For the sake of my brain. And this post really has some issues with basic anatomy.

I must admit I have really no idea how to do this. But as I walk through it, my newly-retired elbows and I will share more. I think it means I need to accept that this is going to be hard and it might involve some breaking. Some mess. But maybe picking up the pieces will mean a stronger Dana brain.

So, for now? Thank you for sticking with me. Single-tasking is not easy but at least it doesn’t involve needles?

*Second graders: YOUR art projects are always adorable and lovely. I have my son’s purple lopsided pottery dish that resembles roadkill turtle on my bedside table and I adore it. FYI. I’m just saying that as you get older, you kind of want to level up from roadkill turtle, ok? But I’m NOT saying your artwork is any less precious because… oh argh you know what I mean.

I think we’re safe. No second graders read my blog.

Before I go:

1. There are all sorts of links in my blog posts now. These links help my blog to gain traction, and so if you are inclined, you might click on them. They mostly point back to my writing, some of which is pretty funny, and I also promise they are not going to be links to squirrels re-enacting scenes from Game of Thrones (Which, come to find out, is AWESOME). Geert Weggen, the creator of this squirrel amazing-ness, is found here, and you should really go check him out.)

2.If you would like some researched and curated quick tips on this topic and more creative hacks, join me for Pie and Coffee: 3 Habits, 2 Helps, and 1 bit ‘o Hope, free of charge. Sign up below!