WHY DID I COME IN HERE?

Those whose job it is to think up things to celebrate have designated July 2 as I Forgot Day. Why? It’s really not a thing we need to remember.

Remembering the important things is not hard for us seniors to do. We’ve been calendar-trained. Paper or electronic, we use our calendars to remind of community and church meetings, doctor’s appointments, parties, birthdays, anniversaries, and such. Much of our “to do” schedules, like taking out the trash, are imbedded in our brains. Unless we are the totally disorganized and perennially late types, “I forgot” is really no excuse to miss any of life’s important moments, and at this point in our lives we look forward to being around for each and every event.

What happens to us seniors more and more noticeably it seems, are the “my mind’s a blank” moments.

My Mind is a Blank Moment Type A -

“Who was that tall movie star who was in, oh, you remember, the one about the showdown at high noon.” “Good grief, it’s on the tip of my tongue.” “Ah, I almost had it.” “Geeeze loueeeeese.”

My Mind is a Blank Moment Type B –

“Now where did I put that receipt?” “Where are the car keys?” “How did we let this milk go bad?”

My Mind is a Blank moment Type C –

“Why did I come in here?” “What did I just think of for the shopping list?” “Why did I come in here?”

This last type is the most annoying. Recent studies are coming to the conclusion that just walking through a door can cause memory lapses. The scene changes and we instantaneously forget what was on our mind. The only cure is to go back to where we were, look around, let our subconscious relate to what we see, remember what it is we wanted, and then put that thought into the active part of our brains until we can get to where we can write it down or accomplish what we originally thought to do.

While we know we’ll eventually remember Gary Cooper, and we know we’ll eventually find the car keys, the blanks in Type C are likely to remain blanks. We can avoid going from room to room, of course, or we can walk round with a pad and pencil hung around our necks, or, because it probably wasn’t an earth-shaking thought to begin with, we can chalk it up to another Senior Moment and, like the Budweiser chameleons, just “let it go, Louie.”