Let me introduce myself.  My name is Lora Marie.  I am what my counselor calls a divergent thinker.  My husband, like many men, is a linear thinker.  This has caused some issues in our discussions from time to time, as you can imagine.

I sometimes wonder how people follow the path of my verbal meanderings.  Once in awhile I catch myself in the middle of a mental rollercoaster and think, “Where was I going with this?”  But my friends just follow along and help me find my way back to my original train of thought.  I have some really fabulous friends.  Some of them even tell me that they like to listen to me talk.  I always tell them, “Watch out!  That just encourages me!”  And it does.

This idiosyncrasy of mine causes my husband to go crazy at times because he really does want to understand me.  By the time I come back to his turn in a dialogue we are having, he has this confused expression on his face and says, “I don’t remember what we were talking about in the first place.”  I don’t either sometimes.

My son used to call me “tangent woman” because the whole thing was really funny to him.  He even sang it to me like a little song when I was doing this.  Now my grandchildren just call me “random.”  They think it’s funny too!  That’s okay.  I like being considered funny.

One day I discovered that this behavior was not unusual in my family.  My mother and brother were talking and they were both doing these verbal gymnastic routines  in the same conversation.  They just followed each other in and out of several different topics and ended up completing all of them at the same time.  Wow.  I was impressed.  And to think I had never even noticed it before.

Upon further reflection, I realized that I had seen this pattern before with my dad and his mom (my grandmother.)  They did this flawlessly, and I had observed it all my life. So I guess you could say I came by this naturally.  And you could also say that some men are divergent thinkers too.

So, I have decided to do this experiment, so to speak, and write a blog.  I have no idea whether or not anyone will want to read this.  But what the heck?  Why not?  Let me know what you think!