Slowly, day by day, I seem to be losing my marbles. On Friday, I completely forgot about Hayden's afternoon gymnastics lesson. I do have a semi excuse -- it was Good Friday, school was out and it felt like a Saturday. The week before, we missed a piano lesson and before that, an art class and a fund-raising meeting. It's gotten embarrassing.
My most egregious bout of forgetfulness was two years ago, in the midst of a cross-country move, I blanked on my best friend's birthday. It wasn't until a month and a half later, when I casually pondered a present for her at Anthropologie, that it all came back to me.
It feels like ever since I had my first baby, my brain has yet to be fully restored to its original condition. I don't know if its a hormonal issue, or simply the fact that I'm now managing three busy lives instead of one, that my memory capability has gone on the fritz. Then there's another, more horrific explanation: I'm just plain getting old. Lately, I have a new-found empathy for Alzheimer's patients. That's me in five years.
Then there are the little day-to-day happenings, like when I'm in the shower and cannot for the life of me remember if I've already shampooed. And when I'm starting a load of laundry, half the time I can't recall if I've already added the soap. So then I've got myself quite a dilemma: do I risk running the load with no soap or take the chance that I'm using double and might just suds up the laundry room? It's a toughie.
I've tried lots of practical solutions to my problem. There's a family calendar in the kitchen (sporadically used), my personal datebook, and Outlook all to help me organize. I even stuck up a white board by the back door where I can leave important reminders to myself. But we can see how well that works.
It's a more global issue than just the memory. To me if feels like the synapses just aren't firing as fast as they used to. Often I'll pause in the middle of a sentence, not quite able to put my finger on the word I'm searching for. It goes something like this:
me: "QB, will you please pick up your golf....sticks?"
son, sarcastically: "You mean golf clubs, Mom?"
It's well past pathetic.
The other day I picked up a bottle of Ginkgo Biloba, which is supposed to help with these sorts of problems. It must be around here somewhere...
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