Most of the time, I think I’m pretty smart. I read a lot. I’ve traveled. I went to decent schools. I am up on current events. I’ve had good jobs. I generally get “it.”

However. I come from a line of Upper West Side intellectuals who question your smarts if, say, you are not up to date on Plutarch (I’m not) or if you aren’t in some sort of Proust society (ditto). In my family, you only have cred if/when you understand any/all historical/philosophical references and have some level of proficiency in advanced calculus, which you may or may not be required to do on the spot.

Since I check my 5th-grader’s math homework with a calculator and have to look up what “Occam’s razor” is every time I see it referenced (which happens more than you’d think ), I do not always measure up to my kinfolk or their standards. As a kid/teen, I rebelled against this intellectual snobbery by becoming as familiar with any/all minutia about my favorite celebrities as possible – which to my credit was much harder to do in the non-digital age of yore. I also “showed them” by deciding Shakespeare was “eh” and refusing to read or acknowledge The New Yorker.

Still, even if I don’t measure up to these aforementioned (and let’s be real, ridiculous) scholarly standards,  I still think I’m smart — or mostly smart – even if not as highbrow smart as me moms. But…there are occasions (translation: multiple times per day) where I think…am I?

The most egregious examples of my self-questioning were back in the day when I actually had a job/people who paid me money for my smarts. These smarts/skills involved math, statistics and writing. I analyzed the beejoosus out of data for high profile clients and thrived under pressure. I could tell you what a regression analysis was and whether we needed to run one. I understood standard deviations and such.  I was occasionally told to dumb down my vocabulary in my memos.

Yet there I would be, in charge of a project, data in hand, answering some higher-up/client/boss-man question and wonder if I actually knew what the fuck I was talking about. I mostly thought I did, but like…what if I didn’t? I kept waiting for someone to realize they’d made a Very Big Mistake hiring me and felt sure that one day the curtain would be drawn and the real Oz would be revealed. That didn’t happen. But I kept fearing it would.

Over the years, I have learned that the above stress is a very (common) female phenomenon which makes me want to rage against the machine. At the same time, knowing that I am not alone in these feelings makes me more confident that I wasn’t actually pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes, that I did know what I was doing….and that I was instead (semi) fated to self-doubt by virtue of being an XX-chromosome bearer (apropos of all of this; even though I know women are XX and men are XY, I do, I just DOUBLE CHECKED THAT ON GOOGLE.COM BECAUSE WHAT IF I FORGOT ALL BASIC SCIENCE).

The thing is, I’ve come to understand that my intellectual self-doubt is not limited to the professional world.  There are other perhaps more mundane cases in which I wonder…am I the only person sitting here who has close to zero clue what is going on? Examples:

My sister – who is one of the smartest people I know (which, incidentally, I tell her to her face, unlike my spouse – about whom I feel similarly – where my goal is to maybe never tell him to his face) – has published a successful book (historical fiction) about Cleopatra’s sisters. Naturally the book takes place during Cleopatra’s time (which I knew took place sometime in the BC realm which made me feel smart and maybe a little worldly). While I loved the book (seriously, go read it: Cleopatra’s Shadows –  http://amzn.to/29Ea5xw), I spent a significant amount of time wondering how she got the cadence and language of that time down pat. How she managed to write a tome that sounded like it could have been written then. I mean, I can write…but not like that.  I vaguely feared discussing the book with her/my family lest I pronounce “Ptolomy” or other ancient words incorrectly. But the book in and of itself did not make me question my intellect because I understood the plot, liked the characters and remembered (fondly?) what eunuchs are.

But then I went to a reading my sister gave last week.  At the reading, she answered  a question about whether her book had any Antigone influence. On the plus side, I’ve heard of and even read Antigone, and can pronounce her name. On the minus side, I remember nothing about her/the play other than that she was Greek and maybe mythological. Here’s the thing: At the Antigone reference, everyone else in the audience was nodding and “mmm hmm-ing” along like we were talking about the Real Housewives of New York or something. Did this sizable group of people remember all things Greek/Sophocles?

Another example: Brexit. I comprehend that Brexit has racist/xenophobic underpinnings because I’m not a complete idiot and do read this publication called The New York Times on a daily basis. But I had to read an article that may have actually been called “Brexit for dummies” to fully grasp the trade and more global implications of a UK exit. Other people – people I don’t even consider intellectuals – seem to be able to discuss the ins/outs of this (and other international politics) with more ease/intimate familiarity than I do. I keep hoping they’re faking it like I do when forced to discuss things which I do not understand, but I don’t think they are.

Which leads me to the subprime mortgage/housing crisis of 2008-9. I’ve had some time on this one. I know bad things happened. That there were mortgage foreclosures and delinquencies, and that there was some sort of problem with subprime lending. I get the basics (ish). Other people seem to understand more. More about both the bigger picture and the nuances. More about what actually caused the entire financial crisis. More about all of it.

I was excited when Hollywood made a (fictional) movie about the topic because, hello, that I could get my mind around. Let’s just say that while I mostly understood how the crisis happened during the movie, I forgot everything I had “learned” upon exiting the theater.  That movie got some Oscars, man, which means that other  Americans probably felt pretty versed in the subprime mortgage crisis after seeing its Hollywoodization. I did not.

This is a new low, people. I’m not feeling dumb when comparing myself to my egghead family or my group of smart, well-versed friends, but when head-to-head with the the general population of our nation, a chunk of whom have already voted for Donald Trump. A nation of people who spawned a television show called “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” (The show worked for a reason. A sad, sad reason).

I will now stop embarrassing myself/horrifying my mother (and perhaps the fellow parents at my daughter’s school from where I graduated). To make myself feel better and to end on a positive note, I would like to point out that I can wax poetic about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steinem and feminism in general.  I can talk domestic politics with confidence. I scored a perfect score on the logic portion of the LSAT.  And if you want to know what’s up with Bethenny….I’m your woman.