I’m in hell right now due to a bevy of reasons I won’t list since, whining never helps anything. Now wining is a different story, but it’s much too early to crack open a bottle of red.
I talk openly about being in a 12 Step Program, two to be exact. The rule is, anonymity for others, but you can come clean as long as you keep it about yourself.
To be open and honest, candor flowing, is my greatest goal, thinking of enrolling in the John Waters’s Online Course..Spilling Your Guts in 4 Easy Lessons…All Major Credit Cards Accepted.
That all said.
When those winds come, how do we proceed? I’ve had challenges my whole life and maybe youth made them easier to conquer, because I feel as if I’m losing ground, not to mention my wallet that I swear, plays Hide and Seek at least once a day.
My forgetfulness concerns me, not to mention a chronic case of distraction. Saturday after hysterically retracing my steps, located my Debit Card at Barnes and Noble that a woman apparently behind me in line, rescued, unable to catch up with me since I tend to gallop like a Greyhound late for a race.
It scares the wits out of me, this early dementia? Oh we all do it, says my friend Ed.
But do we?
He also said, a doctor told him, if you’re worrying about dementia, you couldn’t possibly have it. If I knew where that doctor was, I’d send a bouquet.
My mother, who in one way or another inhabits my being, her strength I’ve mysteriously inherited, gets me out of bed every day regardless. Just now while having a substantial sob still made coffee after taking my vitamins, making the bed and donning my running clothes.
Right foot left foot, chants in my head like an Olympic Mantra.
When Bette Davis said, old age ain’t for sissies, All About Eve wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie, Lincoln’s favorite tune, by the way.
I guess if I can still remember Abe whistling, I must have at least one marble left.
That all said….
where the hell are my keys?
Better check the fridge.
SB
I used to reassure my mother that due to worry about dementia, she noticed her memory lapses more . When we’re young and forgetful the lapses pass with nary a second thought. I’m in the older shoes now and my reassuring line is difficult to swallow. But maybe there is a grain of truth in it. Fingers crossed.
And since we’re both worried about it, I sure hope that doctor is correct.
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Gotta love that doctor and Ed who told it to me. Humor, it bails you out Skinny. As unnerved as it all makes me, it also makes me laugh, like when my glasses I’ve just spent 20 minutes hysterically looking for, alas, are on my head. OY
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A brilliant reflection that delivers both smiles and heartache. Be strong and keep smiling!
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I just finished the new John Water’s new book and devotes a whole section to it, funny of course but at 72, he’s whistlin’ Dixie too.
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I was questioned on this subject just recently by my son who swears he told me something. Those words never left his lips in my direction. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Hold your ground Susanna. You aren’t alone. I think our brains slow down a bit as we grow older, and when you find that doctor, add some flowers to his bouquet from me too!
~Elle
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I will. Was thinking snow balls, as my granny used to call hydrangeas. 🙂
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SB,
Ed and the doctor are right, it’s not something you’d be concerning yourself with if you were experiencing the symptoms of it.
You’re a voracious reader, which is a very good thing. Because it means that your mind is not only spot on when it comes to dealing up razor sharp wit and cheeky anecdotes, but it’s processing faster than a spin class instructor.
Keep reading, writing and running. 🙂
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Now that just picked me up. The two Rs with a W chaser.
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I was gonna say something to that effect but I couldn’t find it. YOU found it.
Fuck the keys, that’s where it’s at! 🙂
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Well, unless you’re locked out again, putting Sam the Locksmith’s kid through college. Sigh
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Locksmiths are the last of the Mohicans. They used to share the yellow pages with TV and vacuum cleaner repair shops and Radio Shacks. Back when there WAS a yellow pages.
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No more Yellow Pages, that’s true. Few people at least here, have landlines anymore. And you can Google any number in a New York minute. Sometimes it feels like we’re living ala Blade Runner. Remember the traveling sushi stands that would pop outside your window? Well, any minute.
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I’d take one of those sushi stands. Everything else . . Imma pass.
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I could eat sushi forever. sigh
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We share a love of sushi.
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Just had some.
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Oooooohhhhh. And I had pizza. I got the short end of that one.
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I love pizza. It’s in my DNA.
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Favorite pizza toppings?
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Basil, mushrooms and enough cheese to clog all arteries.
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Mushrooms is my favorite!
And yes to the extra cheese.
Now here’s the thing, and it seems to be the fork in the road when I talk to most pizza lovers.
I like to let the pizza “settle” for a few minutes before I dig in. As with any food I eat, I cannot stand to eat it piping hot.
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My Italian grandfather was a baker, and made pizza every Sunday for supper. It was amazing. Always cut in squares, and he taught me that, if the slice you’re about eat is very greasy and you have to blot the cheese, it means they used really cheap, not 100% Mozzarella. Say it Gramps.
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Sounds amazing. I cut my pizza in squares as well. I was always a fool for Sicilian slices when I was younger.
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He just cut them that way. His pizza was so light. I’ve never had it quite like that again. It’s all in the olive oil, he was say. sigh
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What Marc said! And, I heard tell it’s normal to forget little things when the mind is busy with so other stuff. All jokes aside, there are times when I think, shit, what the hell is the matter with me? Then I sit down and realise that there is a circus going on inside my mind – the memory of where I put my glasses or keys is stuck behind the trapeze artist and the juggler. I take a deep breath and amazingly enough, said objects appear rather quickly. Unless I was wearing a coat when I stopped off for gas and left my card in one of the pockets. Then I have to try to remember what I was wearing or go through every damn pocket of every damn jacket I own!
Keep on keeping on, You’re doing fabulously.
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Patti Smith in M Train calls it…the Land of Lost Things. It’s incredible to me how things disappear. I need to lighten up. I just have so many things going on, you’re right…my mind is like the Big Top.
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I figure if mine is, yours must be too 😉
So, yes, lighten up and give yourself a break!
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Deal…:)
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😀
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I usually have a place (or 3) for an item and try to ALWAYS put it in one of the 3. Not so hard to find. I saw an ad for 3×3 squares of clear plastic that adhere to anything and come off when you need them to. I wanted several as one of the suggestions was to put one next to the door and stick your keys to it.
I have a question, none of my…, but still. if you are in 2 12 step programs, why is it you still occasionally drink?
Scott
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I haven’t been. Maybe I elude to it, but I’ve been on the wagon for a while now. You must make room for poetic license, if you will.
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Will do. Glad to know that.
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You remember the fridge is a good place to look and that has to be a positive. 😉
What you lose in memory, you gain in wisdom. It’s like grey hair and wrinkles: you can try to fight but maybe it’s better to just roll with it.
In the final analysis, our time here is so brief, it would be a criminal waste to spend even a moment being miserable.
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Agreed. I always think of all the people who died at the World Trades Center, what they were so worried about. It always straightens me up, at least for a little while.
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It’s OK to lose things, as long as it isn’t your mind you are losing.
I forget things, but I try not to worry about it. My memory is still better than many of those around me. I try to be especially aware when I put something down in an unusual place. I may soon say something aloud to myself like, “You are putting your keys in the medicine cabinet. You’d better remember that.”
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I’m laughing and checking next to the bandaides I always see carrying instruments. 🙂
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That sentence brought up such an amusng word picture. I saw little bandages carrying trumpets and trombones.
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with tourniquets.
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Aren’t you the brilliant one! I had no idea there was a Tourniquet Band! It’s a Christian metal band, popular in the 1990’s I think. My imaginary bandaid group was a brass band.
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There’s also rubber band, that I hear is quite a stretch…:)
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Oooooh! Good one! Down here we have the Eastern Band of Cherokee, but their music is primitive.
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Hmm…are the BAND MEMBERS PRIMATES THEN? An ape on Sax…monkey on drums?
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Kudos to you for keeping the beat.
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An imitator’s beat. I’m still catching up with the master. 🙂
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We stay caught up equally, I think .
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Nah
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Getting old is tough, but the getting there builds character muscles. One of the character muscles is sense of humor to help us with the gritty parts of the nitty. Hang in there you are doing just fine.🐈
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I feel like Moses, just in tights and flats, but will try to apply your good words.
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I’m forgetful about somethings, although it’s usually names. As a teacher, I’m good at remembering a lot of names very quickly, but then I forget them just as quickly if I don’t see the people for a while. I think with all your reading and exercise, you’ll stay sharp for a long time. If you’re worried, you can study a foreign language or something. 🙂 I’ve heard coffee staves off dementia too, just saying
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In that case I’ll be looking into an IV of a nice French Roast. 😊
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