Forgetting

I was talking with Debbie the other day. In and around everything else, I told her about my last visit to see Mother ... and about my concerns that Mother is getting so forgetful. (I didn't go into details. On the other hand, she dealt with her own mother's decline, so she understands the idea.)

Anyway, in and around talking about how much of a change this is in Mother, since she used to be sharp as a tack, I suddenly remarked on something else.

I have a regular weekly call with Marie. And over the last few months there have been a number of times—two? three? four? something like that—when she has mentioned casually some discussion we had a few months earlier and I haven't remembered it.

So what? Right? How big a deal can it be?

This is where I start to sound unspeakably arrogant. But you have to understand that, for me, what I am about to say is not arrogance but simple reality.

It's a big deal. What I am used to—for decades now, really for my whole life if it comes to that—is that if someone references a conversation we had some time in the past, I remember it! Verbatim. I am used to remembering conversations from a decade ago well enough to be able to say, "Wait, is that what you thought I was saying? Oh no! It's true I used those words, but then I followed up by saying this other thing in the very next breath. And in context I was talking about something totally different." Even if the conversation was ten years ago or more, it would make no difference. I must have made that exact declaration to Wife dozens of times over the course of our marriage, because she was always pulling out some lunatic opinion ... insisting it was mine ... and then justifying herself with, "But you said ...!!" 

And now when Marie tells me that I recommended she buy a bell on this or that website—advice which she took—I have no recollection of the discussion. Sure, it sounds logical. I might have said it. I don't dispute that I said it. But I have no memory of saying it.

My memory used to be flawless. Unimpeachable. The final authority in any dispute. Now? As far as I can tell, now my memory is still pretty good, but no longer perfect. Now it's pretty good, but more or less normal.

How the mighty have fallen.

I know, I know ... it's arrogant to go on like this. And self-centered. Rude. Antisocial. "Not to mention other adjectives," as Tom Lehrer once put it.

It's also depressing. I'm getting old.

In other news, I'm starting to feel it in my knees every time I go up or down stairs. Even a year ago, I think that wasn't true.

Maybe if I lost weight, that might help my knees. Would it help my memory?