Remembering to Remember to Tell You About Not Remembering

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine
Quiet thought come floating down
And settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories
Sweet memories

Getting older is not easy.  You walk into rooms and forget exactly why you are there so you turn around and walk out only to remember why you went in there but then forget when you return to the room.    I call it What did I come in here for Bingo. 

I watched  a movie not long ago that made me cry.  Even though I wasn’t as bad as the character in the movie, my memory is not what it used to be. I can’t remember the name of the movie but it was with that actress.  What’s her name?  Red hair, pale complexion and that guy was in it.  You know that guy that was on that show with that other actress who is really funny.  Anyway, the search for words and names  is frustrating to say the least but the realization that you can’t remember what you needed when you are standing in the aisle of the supermarket and missed appointments are all down right maddening.  Some memory loss is normal in the aging process and some is a product of our environment.  Our phones remember the numbers of our friends, doctor’s and favorite take out places, our computers send us reminders of birthdays and anniversaries and then of course the television never lets us forget important holidays.   Really it should be easy to remember things since we don’t have as much to remember.

Still things fall through the cracks.  Some of us, meaning me, have big cracks in our memories.  We have chasms, grand canyon sized chasms where things fall never to be heard from again.  This abyss is where most of my important information seems to be drawn like a dust bunny up a vacuum.    

Let me be clear here, we are not talking about dementia or Alzheimer’s, no it’s more like CRS, can’t remember shit.  It’s  a fog that comes on and no matter how hard you fight to get through it you are stuck.  Stuck in memory fog.  You know you know why you came into the kitchen but can’t see it through the brain fog.  Like Tom Hanks in Joe VS The Volcano, a brain cloud so large that you think maybe it’s time to buy an awesome set of luggage and become a human sacrifice. 

Exercise your brain the experts say.  Take a class, learn a new skill, get a hobby to challenge your brain.  Since I do what I’m told I enrolled in a class.  A psychology class that studies, you guessed it, memory.  I signed up.  I made it through the first few lectures and my first assignment was due in a week.  Then it happened.  I went into that room and couldn’t remember why I was there. 

I forgot that I had an assignment due.  I forgot that I was taking a class.  I forgot I was taking a class on memory. 

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine
Memories, memories, sweet memories
Memories…  

If you need me I’ll be luggage shopping, I hear there is a Volcano God who needs feeding.