Senioritis
I don’t think it’s mere coincidence that the words "senior" and "senility" both begin with the same 3 letters. I don’t remember when (actually I don’t remember a LOT- and that’s the problem) I experienced my first "senior moment" - was I 45, 50 ? Whatever, they occur far too frequently now and if you are part of- or on the fringes of - the baby boomer generation, then I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced them too.
I know I felt I was definitely in the category of "senior" the first time someone asked what my phone number was and I drew a complete blank. I even looked at the phone hoping to find a clue on the receiver , but no such luck. ( Well, when I was a kid, our phone numbers actually were typed or written somewhere on the base or the receiver.) Anyhow, at first I shuddered at the possibility of experiencing the initial soft signs of memory loss (some of us even attribute it to Alzheimers, even though we all know THAT is not to be taken lightly!). But now I have taken a whole new approach to these lapses.
Picture the memory-storage part of your brain as a large linen closet (or if you prefer, as a huge seven-layer cake) with items piled one on top of the other , no shelves in between for separation,ad infinitum. Every day that we live, we contribute new bits of memory - some wanted and others not-
to the piles in the closet. So its inevitable that some of the more important pieces are being pushed way to the bottom . And if we need to retrieve any one item, it’s not really lost - it just takes a lot longer to reach it and pull it out! How many times have you searched for a name or phrase which you KNOW is in your brain somewhere but you just can’t get it off the tip of your tongue? Until– maybe 3 AM when you are jolted awake and the word(s) just flows out of your mouth!! So you see, these memory-lapses are not a sign of age at all; they are simply an indication of how much knowledge we have accumulated!
When my daughter was a mere tyke of about 2 years, I purchased a set of 4 Sesame Street placemats for her. Each mat had a picture of a beloved Sesame Street character. There was Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ernie , and Oscar the Grouch. I brought the placemats home and showed them to her- this was some time in the summer - and then I said that I would put the mats away and bring them out for a special occasion. Six months later I wrapped 2 of the mats and gave them to her as part of her Christmas trove. She unwrapped the gift, took a look at Big Bird and Cookie Monster, and the first words out of her mouth were "Where’s Ernie and Oscar?" I was floored- what a memory my little genius had!
Some years later as I was recounting this event for the umpteenth time , it occured to me that perhaps my daughter’s memory was nothing special after all. She only had to sift through 1 year’s -worth of verbally-labelled memories to come up with those 2 names!
Maybe science will some day come up with a way for all of us to add little file clerks to our linen closets to help sort through all the clutter!