The Fog I Didn’t Expect

After my husband died, there was a period of time where my memory didn’t work the way it used to.

I asked the same questions repeatedly.
I forgot conversations I’d already had.
I struggled to keep track of what had been decided and what hadn’t.

At first, I assumed I just wasn’t paying attention. But eventually I realized something else was happening.

Grief doesn’t only affect emotions. It affects cognition.

In high-stress, high-loss situations, the brain prioritizes survival over storage. Information doesn’t always move into long-term memory. Decisions don’t always “stick.” Details slip away almost immediately.

That fog can last weeks or months.

I noticed it most when people would reference things I didn’t remember agreeing to. Or when I’d realize I’d already asked the same question — more than once.

Eventually, I stopped trying to hold everything in my head.

I asked people to write things down.

I asked for emails instead of conversations.
I asked for the “story” of what had happened so far — not because I hadn’t been there, but because I couldn’t retain it.

That wasn’t weakness. It was adaptation.

Writing things down gave me something solid to return to when my brain couldn’t keep up. It reduced the fear of forgetting something important. It let me rest instead of constantly replaying details to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that instinct — to get information out of my head and into one clear place — was the beginning of what would later become Calm Crossing.

Many people assume planning is about control.

Often, it’s about cognitive relief.

When someone is grieving, overwhelmed, or under sustained stress, memory is unreliable. Written clarity isn’t about being organized — it’s about reducing the load on a system that’s already working overtime.

If you’ve ever felt foggy during a hard season, you’re not imagining it.

And if you’ve ever needed to write things down just to keep moving forward, that wasn’t failure.

It was care.

With love,

Jessica

PS - I can never thank those friends around me at that time enough, and this was one more thing they helped me with.