Sometimes, when I put pen to paper to write this column I feel like Jimmy Smith Jr in his final series of rap battles in the movie 8 Mile.
Not because of my wordsmithery; gosh, I’d never put myself in the same lyrical league as Eminem.
But because I bring attention to some of the things about my character people would criticise me for — even if just in a friendly round of roasting — before they can.
I am certain that no matter what we fear or are embarrassed about because we’re convinced we’re the only ones who’ve experienced something, these feelings are never exclusive to us.
There is always someone who resonates with what you’re bold enough to speak about or brave enough to admit.
And I don’t particularly mind being the butt of people’s jokes if it helps someone else to not feel so alone.
I have a handwritten sticky note stuck at eye level on my house’s main entry/exit door that says “Have you turned your hair straightener off?”.
I haven’t ever had a guest leave my house who hasn’t commented on it.
So, effective, you’d think?
But I got used to seeing it almost as soon as I placed it there, so, of course, it’s ineffective for me.
I still find myself halfway to work or a night away, questioning whether I did, in fact, turn the hair straightener off.
I’ve found myself straining so hard to stay in the moment so that I’m fully mindful when flicking that switch.
I’ve even taken to speaking out loud to either my kids if they’re in earshot or myself into the silence that “I’ve turned the hair straightener off in case I ask you whether I did later!”.
By doing so, I don’t actually have to ask them later if I did anyway because saying it out loud was enough affirmation and a solid enough memory to create in my own noisy head.
As kids, my siblings and I always teased our mum for checking several times if the house door was locked before driving away.
But I get it now.
And I fully expect my karma with my kids teasing me about my failure ever to recall if I’d flicked a switch or not.
I mean, I do hope I’ve left them a few more exciting memories than that to share at my funeral, but, if not, at least they might be amusing ones.
Our heads are so busy and we’ve got so much going on that we do things on auto-pilot. Our thoughts often lie in the future, not the present — particularly when we’re in the bathroom getting ready in the morning, thinking about what we’ve got on that day.
When it comes to ticking off that virtual checklist inside our heads of all the things we had to do to make the house safe before leaving — have I switched off the lights, put the dog out, locked the doors, turned the hair straightener off — we fail to remember and have to retrace our steps more mindfully.
Who hasn’t looped around the block before hitting the road for a weekend away to make sure you did close the garage door and didn’t just imagine doing it?
I mindlessly broke spaghetti in half before I dropped it into the pot of boiling water as I prepared dinner the other night while my restless mind was somewhere else.
It’s a hangover from having smaller kids and making their pasta easier to wrangle.
One of my young — the youngest — inhaled sharply, aghast: “Mum,” he said in bewilderment, “you could go to jail in Italy for doing that!”.
Could I? Or did TikTok teach him that, along with hundreds of other untruths he’d rather believe over what I — or his school teachers — teach him?
I mean, it might be true.
It wouldn’t be as hard to believe as the illegality of flushing your toilet after 10pm if you live in an apartment block in Switzerland, and I know that one is true.
Or naming a pig Napolean in France, peeing in the sea in Portugal, falling asleep with your shoes on in North Dakota. All illegal, apparently.
But it made me think about how many things we do on autopilot, mindlessly.
In my case, it’s lots.
I’m trying to be more mindful for many reasons, not least so I can avoid plastering my home with fluorescent sticky notes.
It turns out my hair straightener one was completely in vain anyway.
All those trips my mum made to my house to turn it off for me when I was halfway to a weekend destination were a waste of her time because I’ve recently discovered my straightener has an automatic cut-off switch.
Guess how I found that out?
Yep.
I forgot I’d turned it on while I was at home one day.
By the time I returned to the bathroom to straighten my hair when I did eventually recall, it had turned itself off.
So, go ahead, roast me for my mindlessness.
I don’t care, because I’m convinced I’m not the only one who’s done this.