15 Jun
54 and honestly I cannot tell if this is perimenopause, burnout, or just... being 54 in a job that never stops. I used to be the person in the room who remembered everything. Every action point, every name, every thread of a conversation. Now I'm sitting in senior leadership meetings writing notes like a first-year graduate, not because I'm being thorough, but because if I don't write it down the second it's said it is simply gone. Had a moment last week where I lost the word 'provisional'. I knew the concept perfectly, I knew what I was trying to say, my mouth just... produced nothing. Stood there in front of my director. Smiled. Said 'the, um, not-final version'. Wanted to dissolve into the carpet. The notes thing has become a bit of a coping mechanism I suppose. I do a scrappy bullet list during every meeting now and I type it up properly straight after while it's still vaguely in my head. It does help. But it also makes me feel like I'm compensating for something I can't name yet. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to actually describe the work impact properly, not just say 'I'm a bit foggy sometimes' and get fobbed off. So I've started jotting down specific examples. The word that disappeared. The meeting I had to re-read the minutes for twice before it clicked. Whether I'd slept badly the night before, what I'd eaten, that sort of thing. I'm also doing a protein-heavy lunch most days now, less because I read it somewhere, more because the afternoon used to be completely unworkable and this seems to dull the crash slightly. Seems. I genuinely don't know. Is anyone else in this position where you can't tell if you need a hormone conversation or a career break or just a month of proper sleep? I feel like I'm trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing and no idea what the picture is supposed to look like.