Mind Like a Steel Sieve
Or, You say "don't forget" as if it's an option
“I have a quick forgetter.”
I knew a guy who used to say that. He was describing how quickly he could forget the pain of alcoholism: of isolation, bad behavior, powerlessness. It was a phrase that resonated with me for a variety of reasons, but I haven’t thought of it in a long while–my forgetter being rather slow, and in good working order for the past decade or so.
Lately, though, those words have resonated again, although in a much more literal and superficial way. It’s not that I can’t specifically remember pain, or difficult life lessons. It’s that I can’t remember shit.
Did I already write about this? Who’s to say? Not me. Thankfully, these days almost everything one writes is saved electronically, but when you can’t remember whether you’ve written about something, sorting through dozens of documents that you’ve forgotten to title can be maddening.
I’ve taken to snapping photos of the handwritten letters I send, and I record the dates I sent them in my calendar. Every time I write to my friend, Sylvie, I experience fairly intense deja vu and I’m haunted by the worry that I’ve sent her hundreds of cards and letters that all say basically the same thing. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t written back.
One of the more disturbing results of being forgetful is that I sometimes see people, whom I know well, and I can’t place them. I’ve told myself that I’m seeing them out of context, and that the surprise of seeing them where they don’t belong is similar to having been asked a question “too quickly.” The answer is on the tip of my tongue– along with this person’s name.
It’s hard to know what to say when faced with this dilemma. Often I resort to, “Hey… you!” accompanied by a big hug–or a tight smile, whichever seems most appropriate using only context clues. Most times, I’ll eventually figure out who the person is, and their name will come back to me with other information: how we know each other, our history, etc., but often it will come back after the conversation has ended. And, it’s true: there have been times when it hasn’t come back at all. When that happens, I blame the person in question for having not been memorable. That’s a coping mechanism, sure, but also probably true.
I’ve tried to figure out why I’m so forgetful using all the tools at my command, which is to say: I’ve Googled it. Turns out, there are any number of factors that can exacerbate memory loss. They include:
Aging
Hormone fluctuation
Stress
Trauma
Lack of sleep
Poor diet
Lack of exercise
ADHD
Seems like they could put together a list that encompasses fewer of the general population, but here we are.
I have tried to make some lifestyle changes that might help. For instance, I’ve quit smoking. Granted, I only smoked socially and sporadically, mainly in the early 90s and then only after three beers, but still: I’ve put the damn things down.
I’ve also gotten a CPAP machine. I mean, I don’t use it, but it’s there. Occasionally, I’ll put it on, and when I do, I sleep more soundly, but also my husband refers to me as Maverick.
The most fun thing I’ve done to combat memory loss is increasing the time I allot to working puzzles and playing games. Now, I’m not “wasting time on Wordle;” I’m strengthening my brain. Was there a thirty minute break between that last sentence and this one? Yes. Writing it helped me remember that I forgot to do today’s New York Times games. I stopped to do them, then I forgot I was in the midst of writing.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is more I can do, for sure, to try to stave off further memory loss of this type, if not reverse it. But, in the meantime, I wonder if it’s too much to order some custom, graphic tees that announce my memory issues. I haven’t done it so far because I might want to ask someone for money and I’d hate for them to think I’d forget to pay it back.
I’m being a bit glib about all of this, but there’s darkness here, too. I’ve suffered from a more substantive type of memory loss for a long time. I have a really hard time remembering really hard times, and that has more to do with dissociation than with anything else. The downside to your brain protecting you from life-threatening situations is that it makes everything blurry: all the good that is present even during the bad. But, I guess that’s the same type of forgetting that allows us to have more than one child, for instance, or that allows a certain someone to have more than one term in office.
Hanging in the corner of my mind, is the specter of Alzheimer’s Disease. My grandmother developed it late in life and each time I forget something important, I wonder if it’s a sign. I also think about it when I inevitably encounter a friend who has given up deodorant that contains aluminum. This happens so frequently that it’s almost alarming. Why am I so late to the party here? And, I keep forgetting to ask if the risk of aluminum has to do with Alzheimer’s or something else.
At any rate, as with memory loss in general, lifestyle changes seem to be the best way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. Plus, groundbreaking work in Alzheimer’s research is underway in my state, which gives me great hope. Too bad the current president and his administration are trying to cut funding for this lifesaving work. Speaking of people I wish I could forget…
Perhaps the best way for me to deal with this “quick forgetter” is to live in the present as much as possible. It should be easy, considering, but for someone who forgets so much, I sure do have a lot of nostalgia. But, I’ve noticed that time is starting to collapse–I have lost almost all of 2023, for instance, so maybe the nostalgia will abate soon, too.
After all, as they say, “Yesterday’s a mystery, tomorrow is…also a mystery, Today is the present and also a gift.”
That doesn’t sound exactly right, but I've forgotten how it goes.