Normally I have a pretty good memory, and I constantly preach to other women that they have to trust themselves.

So many times when I talk to friends, they tell me that they thought they lost or forgot something important. I always tell them to stay calm, trust themselves, and make a few phone calls. Without fail, they have reported that they didn’t make a mistake after all, they just panicked and expected the worst. “Trust yourself,” I preach.

It was a really busy week. I had been working a lot in December and January, so it was time to catch up with appointments and things I had been putting off.

First I called the eye doctor. The next available appointment was March 3. While I was on the phone, I made an appointment for my husband, knowing that if he couldn’t make it, he would have to reschedule. Either way, he would be forced to make an appointment. They said he could come in Feb. 6. I figured that he probably got in sooner because he doesn’t wear glasses, and therefore required a different type of exam. I wrote both appointments on the wall calendar. I also made long-overdue dates with two friends for lunch.

On Tuesday, I was running errands, and when I stopped to grab a bite to eat, I checked our phone messages at home. There were two messages from the optometrist’s office. The first (which must have come the previous day when I was working outside) was confirming my appointment for the next day. The second was wondering where I was, and if I needed to reschedule.

When I called thinking I would take Lenny’s slot, they said that Lenny’s appointment was on the 13th, not the 6th. Not knowing that he had already moved his appointment, I began to doubt myself. I then called one of the lunch friends to confirm. “We planned on the 12th,” she said, slightly amused at my uncharacteristic confusion. And the other lunch date is the 13th, I thought. “Trust yourself!” I muttered, pushing down the feeling that I was goofing up.

On Friday Lenny was out of town, and I had no appointments. I went to a movie that he didn’t care to see. As I settled in with my popcorn I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. “Trust yourself, I muttered. Just then, my phone lit up with a message from the other friend wondering if I was on my way to lunch. I did it again!

I finally got in to the eye doctor, ordered new glasses, and rescheduled with my friend. But after last week, I have decided to add a little caveat from the cold war: “Trust, but verify.”