If thinking were an Olympic sport, I wouldn’t even make it to the tryouts.

Hell, I wouldn’t even be considered for the backup team’s backup. My brain is like a compass glued to two magnets, spinning wildly and pointing everywhere but north. But unlike a compass, it never seems to find its way.

“Dana, (over)thinking is your strong suit!” you might say.

And you’d be right—at least, you’d have been right a few years ago, I think. When I was younger, I was one of the many kids who were fast-tracked into the “gifted” programs, placed in ‘smart’ classes with ‘smart’ people working on ‘smart’ puzzles. All of us were confident that we were destined for greatness, after all we were promised it. “You’re going to go far, kid“

But now?

Would I still consider myself a smart person? Absolutely not. My therapist is going to have a field day when she hears that I said that. It’s not like that. I’m smart. On a scale of intelligence I’m on it. I know I am. We don’t need to have a pep talk, you and me, reader. It’s okay.

You see, I have this problem. It’s a big one. Out of all my problems—and trust me, there are many—this one is the bug in my brain every moment of every day reminding me just how not-so-smart I am.

I am unstructured, a little chaotic.

Unhinged.

Not the “let’s hop on a plane to Vegas and see what happens” kind of unhinged, although there isn’t anything wrong with that either. No, mine is the sort of unhinged where I start a task, get distracted by another, and suddenly find myself reorganizing a fish tank while completely forgetting that I was supposed to be writing. It’s more than that, though. My mind is always on, but always off. I live in swirls of thoughts and dreams and ideas that I can’t quite catch with my net and pin down long enough to remember.

They’re fast little sh*ts, my thoughts. Fleeting. From the moment I awaken to the moment I re-awaken, my thoughts fill my head with ideas to save the world, to solve problems for people, to fix me. I dream of ideas so good that I awaken in a burst of speed only Katie Ledecky could truly appreciate and try my darndest to write them down for posterity. But my thoughts are faster than me. They’re the camera in the pool on a predetermined track flying at a fast pace.

Realities of Chiari and Pseudotumor

It’s not just the thoughts that bother me. I have diagnoses that make the fleeting thoughts flicker in and out of my mind: Chiari Malformation and a Pseudotumor.

Throw in several brain and spine surgeries for extra spice, and you’ve got a recipe for a brain that doesn’t quite operate by the usual rules. What even are the usual rules? Are there rules? What is the normal operating pressure? I constantly operate under too much pressure (it’s a Lumbar Shunt joke, ha.) I wonder the pressure it would be to operate under the limelight not just be operated on.

And now, to top it all off, there’s a possibility of ADHD—because why not add another layer of difficulty to the score of mental gymnastics I’m already performing? If this is what ADHD feels like, it’s no wonder my thoughts are landing out of bounds on floor routines.

What Simone Biles and Suni Lee Taught Me About Mental Resilience

But then I look at athletes like Simone Biles and Suni Lee, (hell, Jordan Chiles–girl, your sass is underrepresented) and the rest of Team USA and remember that it’s not just me.

She’s not me, I’m not her. Yet I find it comforting deep in my soul that she took a break from the enormous pressure stacked on her. She is someone who has every reason to overthink, yet she’s out there sticking landings that would make even gravity question its reality.

Biles faced the world’s expectations, her own physical limits, and the mental pressure of a thousand lifetimes—and she did it all with the kind of grace (and some clapback with a smile 😉) that makes you think, “How does she even do that?” Meanwhile, I’m over here struggling to stick a Post-it note on my wall without it falling off after two minutes. I wonder if Simone–can I call you that, Mrs. Biles?–has the same problems?

And Suni Lee, stepping up when the world was watching, carrying the weight of her team on her shoulders, and nailing her routines with a precision that’s almost inhuman with not one, but two rare kidney diseases. Are you kidding me?! The kind of focus she has is something I could only dream of—if I could ever focus long enough to dream like that.

I know what you’re thinking:

“Dana, you’re not an Olympian. You don’t need to have their level of focus.”

First, rude. I am quite aware I am out of shape and a little bit asthmatic.

Second, you’re absolutely right.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though? Not to be an Olympian. It’s great for those who are, don’t get me wrong. I’m not great at pushing through the pain of dealing with the Media. To have even a tiniest fraction of that ability to block out the noise, to channel all your energy into one thing, to not get sidetracked ? There’s a certain kind of brilliance in chaos, or at least that’s what I tell myself. But there’s also frustration—like trying to read a book that’s constantly flipping to random pages, never letting you finish a single chapter.

I envy those people with their neatly organized thoughts, their to-do lists with little checkmarks in all the boxes. Their abilities to go for Gold and to do it. I love a good spreadsheet, we know that. To make lists and share things with you all. But to take responsibility for making lists for myself? To follow those schedules and deadlines and meal plans? I try.

But then there’s the other side. The side that tells me maybe, just maybe, my scattered brain is what makes me… me. Maybe it’s what gives me the oddball ideas and quirky insights that make life interesting. Maybe it’s what keeps me on my toes, always ready for the next twist or turn, even if it’s one I didn’t see coming.

Finding Gold in Scattered Thoughts

It may not win me a gold medal, but it sure makes my and my wife’s life interesting.

So here I am, a jumble of unhinged nonsense cheering for Team USA and all other Olympians who have managed to put mind over matter when all else matters. And somehow, they manage to stay upright, even if it’s only because they are too stubborn to fall.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s worth more than any gold medal.

The resiliency in the face of not just the monumental tasks, but the ones you face every single day. I know brain surgery isn’t something to scoff at, either, but sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to be a gold medal Olympian. To bring home something for my country I could be proud of. Then I go to Physical Therapy and remember I couldn’t afford to be taxed on those medals, anyway.