I have a confession to make: I have lost my brain, and I’m not quite sure how to find it again.

If I had to pinpoint the time I began to feel it all slipping away, I would have to say it was during the Fourth of July. While floating my troubles away in refreshing waters of the lake, I overheard a conversation among family and friends regarding the finer points of the reality dating series Love Island.

I’ve never seen a single episode, so I depended upon their explanation. In a nutshell, you’ve got young people shacking up with each other, sharing a single bedroom and bathroom, all for the chance to win a grand prize of $100,000 based on viewers’ votes. Newcomers tempt the established couples, heightening the suspense. If you’re single, you risk elimination. You must stay paired up to have a chance to win.

Sounds like a strange mash-up of middle school melodramatics with a dash of Southern Baptist marriage counseling. You see, there are some of us who’d be better off staying single, but if you want to be voted in as a deacon someday, you better tie the knot and keep it good and tight. Oh, and watch out for that Jezebel spirit.

Next, may we revisit The Proposal: you know, the one we’ve all been waiting on ever since Travis Kelce made that friendship bracelet for Taylor Swift, and then we saw them play out a real-life version of “Getaway Car.”

Except that song’s supposed to be about short-lived romance, reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde’s hot-headed rampage, rather than two old-timers who end up in rocking chairs shelling peas on their front porch, surrounded by a covey of crusty-faced grandkids.

“No, nothing good starts in a getaway car.” Right, Taylor?

But I’m still pulling for you to make it. I want you to have the happy ending. I want you to have pink roses all the time, overflowing as they did in Travis’s backyard when he got down on one knee and popped the question. I want you to have beautiful children together. I want your cats to be fat and happy. I want you to make music inspired by your love for your husband, and not another sad breakup.

And speaking of breakup, can we just clap our hands and say, “Go, Belly!” Au revoir, Jere! 

For the last straw stuck in my head, sucking out any vestigial remnants of my intelligence, would be one in an icy drink on Cousins Beach, setting for the hit show The Summer I Turned Pretty. 

For those of you in the dark, here’s a descriptive snippet from Amazon Prime:

“Based on the best-selling book trilogy from [Jenny] Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a multigenerational drama centered around a love triangle involving one girl and two brothers. It explores the complex bonds between mothers and their children, the strength of lasting female friendships, and the transformative journey of growing up. At its heart, it’s a coming-of-age tale about first love, first heartbreak, and the unforgettable magic of one perfect summer.”

My retelling: it’s practically a menage a trois involving a clueless girl named Isabel who can’t decide if she wants dud brother or stud brother. She is often called “Belly,” a rather fitting nickname since her shifting appetite for each brother results in heartbreak and drama, but after 25 million viewers have tuned in worldwide for the third season, I say let her have her all-you-can-eat buffet.

And occasionally, she nibbles away at other young men. She’s lately enjoyed a young Spaniard on her Parisian getaway, her tapas bar sampling.

Youngest Daughter has been a faithful viewer from the series’ beginning, and since teenage girls desire that their mothers hang out with them, despite what most people assume, I decided to give Season 3 a try.

I’ll not spoil it for you, but I’ve had my Thanksgiving, Christmas, a trip to Paris, and a new haircut, all lived vicariously through the characters in that shallow show, with a soundtrack of Taylor Swift’s songs moving the emotion along.

“Are we out of the woods?”

At the end of it all, even I was cheering, as Youngest Daughter and I discussed whether we were silver girls or gold girls. So yes, the show is about the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, but we found a truer representation while sitting on the couch absorbing the story, rather than learning anything of worth from the characters themselves.

It was a nice getaway, I’ll admit. And after taking the time to reflect on it all, the bits and pieces of my brain just might be congealing again into some sort of real intellectual thought instead of floating around in the shimmering heat of summer’s haze.

Sometimes it’s nice not to think too long and hard. I guess that’s what this post is all about. It’s also nice to spend time with those who might enjoy things that we can’t fully comprehend, until we give it a whirl.

It might mean losing our brains, if only for a little while, but in the process, we find something else.

After that final episode, I think just maybe, I’ve got a bigger heart.