This Is My Brain, and I’m Choosing to Love It

I’ve been trying to finish writing the story about how I found out my husband was cheating on me, and the moment I finally decided to leave. But honestly? I just… don’t feel like going there right now. That part of my life will come out in pieces when it wants to. Today, I’m more focused on something else: figuring myself out. Learning to accept my brain exactly as it is. Being okay with me.

For a long time, people told me I “didn’t think like others,” so I tried to make myself smaller. Quieter. I kept my ideas tucked inside my head because I thought they were too much, too big, too over-the-top, too weird. Even my girls, as they got older, learned more, studied psychology in college, would tell me, “Mom, you might have ADHD,” or “Mom, your brain never shuts off.” "Mom, you have 10 projects going right now." And they weren’t wrong. It really doesn’t shut off.

My last boyfriend used to look at me and ask, “What are you thinking right now?”And I never wanted to answer, because usually the truth was… everything. All at once. In layers. A few times, I would share some of my thoughts; they weren't received as I'd hoped.

Then I’d ask him what he was thinking, and he would say, “Nothing.”I never believed him. I couldn’t grasp how a person could sit on the couch, eat dinner, watch a show, and genuinely think nothing. Meanwhile, my brain was planning tomorrow, reliving yesterday, wondering what my girls were doing, replaying conversations, imagining future trips, inventing crafts, calculating grocery lists, and thinking about ten different emotional things at once.

So I assumed I must be strange. Too much. Too scattered.I stopped sharing what was going on in my head because I didn’t want to sound odd or be judged.

A couple days ago, I tried a medication that supposedly slows your brain down. Helps you focus. Makes you neater, more organized, more linear. And I. did. not. like. it.

My brain went quiet in a way that felt unnatural, like someone dimmed the lights on my personality. I’ve lived 54 years with this mind. I’ve learned to work with it. It’s loud, but it’s creative. It’s scattered, but it’s alive. It jumps, but it’s mine.

Today, while running errands on a Saturday morning, something shifted. My thoughts started popping again one after another, and I felt like myself. I was thinking about Thanksgiving and activities I could bring to work. Then Christmas and what I want to do for my girls. Then, a possible trip I might take. Then, how could I make that Spain Eclipse trip happen for myself and my extended family? Then crafts I want to do when I get home. Then this blog. Then how much I actually like this busy, buzzing brain of mine.

And then I thought: I don’t want to be black-and-white about life anymore. I can live in the gray.

I don’t need to be angry at my ex forever, even though he changed our family’s path in a way I never asked for. I can still care about him, still humanly love him, without wanting him back or excusing his choices. I don’t want to carry that heavy anger around it doesn’t fit me.

My middle daughter is so much like this, too. She’s a gray thinker. She forgives easily. She wants to be kind to the people who’ve hurt her. And I want to encourage that in her, not shut it down. Life isn’t black and white. People aren’t. Pain isn’t.

If you have a kind, gentle spirit, why should you hide it?Why let other people convince you that softness is weakness?

What if we all started talking about the people who hurt us in more humane ways? Not “they’re wonderful,” not false praise, just… honesty.“They made mistakes.”“They’re human.”“They’re trying to figure themselves out, too.”

What if that was enough?What if kindness didn’t have to mean closeness?What if grace didn’t have to mean forgetting?

If someone chooses to live in black and white and cut off family for years, that’s their choice. But I don’t want to live that way anymore. I used to think I had to, especially as a mom, to teach my girls “not to accept bad behavior.” But honestly? What I should’ve shown them instead was this:

“I want a partner who shares my heart and spirit. Their dad didn’t. That doesn’t make him evil - just different.”

I’m learning that there’s space in the world for people like me - people whose minds jump, wander, create, heal, and soften all at once.

And maybe the real work of this next chapter is loving the way my brain works, instead of trying to fix it.