I can\u2019t remember anything. Yesterday, I was writing and forgot how to spell THE.\u00a0 T-H-E.\u00a0 Not the words nauseous or bureaucratic (which I always forget) but THE.\u00a0 These moments are frightening and make me want to pound my skull against the wall screaming, \u201cWHAT ____ HELL?\u201d\u00a0 I joke with my friends that I am like a 1980\u2019s computer with no memory and a big back end.\u00a0 I have hundreds of business cards and numbers on scraps of paper from people I don\u2019t remember meeting, I bought a sympathy card and couldn\u2019t remember who died and worst of all, I received a wedding invitation from someone I didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Or couldn\u2019t remember.\u00a0 I googled, I researched, I even called my detective friend who looked through his database and still, nothing rang a bell.\u00a0 I considered going to the wedding to see if I recognized the couple.\u00a0 In the end, I decided I simply sent the response card admitting I didn\u2019t actually know who they were.\u00a0 Amazingly, they didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
My friends are kind about my memory loss. They say,\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re just distracted, with grief, stress and single parenting\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s a side effect of medical menopause, aging and we all have he same thing\u201d \u00a0 This might be true\u00a0 but it feels like crap when I can\u2019t find someone\u2019s name.\u00a0 There is a firefighter friend who named his son after my deceased husband.\u00a0 He is sweet and friendly and hugs me hard when he sees me at Fire Department functions.\u00a0 Not only can I not remember his name but I can\u2019t recall his wife\u2019s name or anything we have ever talked about.\u00a0 I scroll through the Irish names most the firefighters have: Dennis, Kevin, Sean and Brian but eventually I find it impossible to pretend I know and say the inevitable. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry, but I\u2019m completely blanking on your name.\u201d<\/p>\n
After my husband died on 9-11, the slogan that appeared everywhere was \u201cNever Forget\u201d.\u00a0 When I first saw the bumper stickers and t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, I was moved, touched that the world would remember my husband and all the souls that perished that day.\u00a0 Now, as an aging widow going through menopause, it feels like a taunt, a challenge I simply can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
When I shared this with my sister, she insisted my memory had always been bad. \u00a0 She reminded me of the joke I made after Aidan was born. \u00a0 I insisted that it wasn\u2019t the placenta that was removed after I gave my birth, but my brain.\u00a0 It is true but I like to think it was a symptom of fatigue that made me forget to click my son into his stroller until someone walking past me said,\u00a0 \u201cMiss, your dragging your son.\u201d \u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t you remember I bough you that book?\u201d my sister said making her point.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was called It\u2019s Hard to Make a Difference when you Can\u2019t find your Keys.<\/i> \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah….Where is that book?\u201d<\/p>\n
The truth is I don\u2019t remember when I couldn\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n
My best friend suggested that perhaps my memory loss was due to smoking pot in high school.\u00a0 She reminded me of our last reunion,\u00a0 how I was genuinely stunned by the stories people told me.\u00a0 It was if they were talking about someone else. \u00a0 One guy with smoky gray hair and a beer belly sidled up to me, choking me in a tight embrace.<\/p>\n
\u201cMARIAN! You look great!\u00a0 I was just thinking about that day we went to Sheep’s meadow and played Frisbee with Leslie and then we roller skated all the way down to the ferry! \u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded and pretended to remember the awesome day in Central Park we spent together but I couldn\u2019t even remember who he was.\u00a0 \u201cDid I sleep with you?\u201d\u00a0<\/i> I want to ask, but of course, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s saved me from complete dementia is the invention of Google.\u00a0 I no longer have to sit with my brow furrowed, scrolling through my foggy memory banks asking ,\u201cWho was that actress from that movie about that thing?\u201d\u00a0 Without Google, I would truly be lost.\u00a0 I went on a date with a guy and together we Googled fifteen times. We had to.<\/p>\n
I am trying not to panic about my memory loss and focus on the positive sides of forgetting. \u00a0 Sitting in traffic, funerals, long lines and bad performance art quickly become distant memories.\u00a0 Returning to a place I have visited is like seeing it for the first time and I am always finding clothes in my closet that I forgot I had.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t remember things. \u00a0 I do.\u00a0 In fact, I am downright nostalgic.\u00a0 When I talk to my son about college its as if someone has smeared Vaseline on the lens of my mind. \u00a0 Was it really that fun?\u00a0 I am one ass cheek into a rocking chair with a pipe talking about the good ol\u2019 days when there was no internet, cell phones and only thirteen channels.\u00a0 \u201cWe had only one video game called Pong<\/i> or table tennis.\u00a0 You would hit a square digital \u201cball\u201d and it would take ten minutes to make it to the other side of the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to think my memory loss is a function of my brilliant mind having so many brilliant thoughts it doesn\u2019t have room for silly things like how to spell \u201cthe\u201d or the name of my dead husband\u2019s friends.\u00a0 The reality is, whether its menopause, pot smoking or simple absent-mindedness, there is no amount of Ginkgo that will bring those memories back.\u00a0 My past has erased itself or as Shakespeare so eloquently said, \u201cMy dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.\u201d Wait. Was that Shakespeare?\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember. I better Google it.<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can\u2019t remember anything. Yesterday, I was writing and forgot how to spell THE.\u00a0 T-H-E.\u00a0 Not the words nauseous or bureaucratic (which I always forget) but THE.\u00a0 These moments are frightening and make me want to pound my skull against the wall screaming, \u201cWHAT ____ HELL?\u201d\u00a0 I joke with my friends that I am like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n