Brain Fry and New Best Friend

Anyone who has either ever moved to a completely new state and a completely new job or experienced finals week at college with 16+ credits (yes, I wanted to be done with college bad enough that I never took less than 16 credits a semester) will understand exactly what I am going through right now. I am experiencing that total, complete brain fry that comes along with such stressful, brain cramming circumstances to the point that I can't remember menial things from one day to the next. I can remember the major things that happen, such as getting up and going to work, but I can't remember the details, such as the people I met on any given day or their names. The worst one so far is that I apparently gave my phone number to my new best friend at work and totally don't remember it... at all.

I've been trying to tell myself, and everyone else for that matter, that it is just because the past two months have been high stress, and I am trying to figure out a situation that is completely new. I'm in a new job, in a new city, in a new state, in temporary housing, and trying to buy a new house. Somehow, I can't help but feel like I'm not only a little bit nuts, but also trying to make excuses for my lack of short-term memory. It actually kind of scares me a bit, even though I know its completely normal and I'm not making excuses.

Friday afternoon I realized how much short-term information I was not retaining while trying to learn a new computer program at work. In a moment of panic and despair, I sought out my new best friend. I just want to say, I sure did pick a wonderful woman to be my new best friend. She told me exactly what I had already been thinking about my lack of memory retention, but put it in such a way that made me feel so much better about it. She also reminded me that all of my comfort items (such as my furniture, pictures, etc.,) are all in storage, so I have precious few of my personal items in my possession right now to comfort me. All I have with me from home is what I could fit in my little car when we moved here four weeks ago, which is not very much at all. She reminded me that my situation right now is extremely high stress, and that what I'm experiencing is completely normal. How does she know so well what I'm going through? She went through the same thing herself not too long ago. She even has the same car as me, so we both know how precious little space we both had to pack belongings into. She has only been here a short amount of time longer than me, and only started working at our office a week before me.

The more I get to know my new friend, the more it becomes obvious we were meant to be best friends. We have almost the world in common. We lived and grew up in the same state, went to the same university, frequented the same buildings at the university, lived in the same places after college, frequented the same places, drive the same car, love the same books, the list just goes on and on. I feel so extremely blessed to know such a wonderful woman and to be able to call her my new best friend. Our friendship is only going to grow and grow the more we get to know each other and are here to support each other through this high stress time in our lives. We have both recently stated we need haircuts, I think I foresee a Girl's Day Out in the near future. :D