Whenever I’m talking to someone a bit older than me and they express concern about not being able to remember things, I get worried. I’m old by some standards, but decades younger than these folks—and I am already severely memory-challenged.
What is my memory going to be like when I’m 60, 70, or 80 years old? I better book my room at the Care Center now!
If you think I am kidding, I can give you a perfect example. When I decided to write this column about my increasingly bad memory, I jotted down a few thoughts that I wanted to include. I knew I couldn’t trust my feeble brain to recall the thoughts when I sat down to write Unorganized Territory.
Great idea, writing things down isn’t it? Unless you can’t remember where you wrote things down!
I can remember ridiculously unimportant things of course. For instance, I vaguely recall that our delightful Taste of Home food columnist Sandy Holthaus recently wrote a column about her poor memory. I can’t remember though if her tale of woe is the same as mine. I think she wrote something about the benefits of a bad memory—but I can’t remember.
I can remember silly poems from kindergarten and trivial things like when the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show (February 1964) and how big is the Hope diamond? (It’s 45.5 carats—and it’s blue.)
But the missing note I wrote to myself? Nope. I can clearly recall jotting the note on the back of one of my tablets. I picture myself quickly scribbling a sentence meant to later jog my memory. But can I remember what the sentence said? Or where I put the tablet? Sadly, no.
Still think I’m kidding? Come for a ride with me. Ask me what that noise is when I turn a corner. What is that racket rolling around in the hatch? Why it’s the recycling that I keep forgetting to take to the recycle center.
My family knows my memory is terrible. I tell them constantly, “If you don’t see me write it down, you didn’t tell me.”
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to my dear husband, Chuck, that I once forgot him at Grand Marais Motors. I didn’t really forget him of course; it was just a momentary memory lapse.
On the morning of the day that I will never be allowed to forget, we left the house at about the same time. As I hurried out to my car, Chuck asked me to stop by the garage to pick him up. He was going to use my car while his truck was being worked on.
“No problem,” I said as I hopped in my car—and headed directly to work.
Imagine my horror when a few minutes later, Chuck walked up the steps to the News-Herald office. Oops! He didn’t even have to say, “Did you forget something?”
I was mortified—and I’m still apologizing!
When I was bemoaning the fact that I don’t have the recall that I used to, my friend Laurie reassured me that it’s not that I’m losing my memory, it’s that I’m always busy, always trying to do too many things at once. It’s a nice thought.
Too bad I won’t remember it in half an hour!
Those who cannot remember the past will spend a lot of time looking for their cars in mall parking lots.
Jay Trachman
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