Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Be Kind to the Older Ones - They Might Even Remember It

"Ooooh, to be young again."  


That is a thing old people think.

I think that now.

I am ten, maybe  eleven months into the hormonal shift that is happening to me and I feel like I cannot even vaguely recall a time when I was young. 

The children I am raising tell me that there was a time when I remembered things well and even seemed smartish.

I don't recall it.
They do.

Recently I sat down and lamented that I had no idea what to give the kids for dinner.  My best girlfriend, KJ, said, "I just put that leftover ham in the oven". 

I said, "Oh my gosh, that's great. Thank you so much."

I sat in the chair, rocking and thinking.
Fast forward eight or nine minutes.
I said the same damn thing again ...  "I don't know what to give the kids for dinner."

KJ burst out laughing.

I forgot about the ham in eight and a half minutes.  It's horrifying, really.  I know it is not funny to joke about dementia but I worry about my short term memory a whole freakin lot right now.  I do things like that way so very often.

This afternoon I was all done working for the day. I was putting random things from the refrigerator on the table and calling it dinner. Suddenly I decided that I needed to move a piece of furniture out of my house and over to the house where Stefanie (the kids' teacher) lives.  This is how I operate now - my mind changes to something new and I follow it.

I loaded up the shelf and headed out.

On the road I ran into the guy that does the yard work and such at the Maternity Center.  He said, "A friend of Rachelle is here looking for you."  I know a few Rachelles and had no idea which one he meant. I said, "Okay, where?"  He motioned for me to talk to a man and a woman standing in the street together nearby.

I said hello and the man said, "You delivered my wife Rachelle at your clinic and we have a friend that would like to know more about the program. She needs information."  As he said that he motioned to a gray haired lady next to him. 

I said, "You need information about our program?"  She nodded. I said, "Okay, but we are a clinic that works with pregnant women. Is someone you know pregnant?" 

She looked at me and said, "You know I cannot tell a lie. I am the one that is pregnant." 

I did my best dramatic act and fell backward a bit and said, "YOU are not the pregnant one! You're an old person." 

(It takes one to recognize one.)

She informed me that she is two months pregnant and that she is 54 as of today.

I told her to come see me tomorrow. 
We shall see if this is true.

My problems with forgetting things might seem really small after tomorrow's meeting.