Just Forget It...

I possess an amazing talent; the gift of forgetting random things on a regular basis, and I do it so often that it causes my family to look at me funny. To the outside world, I can somewhat simulate the appearance of a semi-intelligent human being. However, people who live with me realize it is not far out of the realm of possibilities for me to forget my own name.

Now granted, during a disagreement with my husband I can remember the exact wording of something unsavory that he said to me back in 1993, but I have absolutely no hope of recalling which key opens the front door of our house, and which one opens the back—hey, it’s not my fault both keys look so much alike. When I ask my husband “Which key?” for the billionth time since we’ve lived in our house, he’ll smirk and once again tell me that the key for the front door is concave, while the one for the backdoor is convex. Well I’m sure that would be just ever so helpful if I could only remember what convex and concave mean.

I also forget the whereabouts of where I put stuff; having a husband and a son means that there’s always a plethora of “stuff” that needs to be put away. Of course, their idea of putting anything away is either leaving it out, or giving it to me. Weeks later when they ask me where something is, I have no clue because I’ve put away enough things for them within that timeframe to fill a U-Haul.

There have been instances during Christmastime where I have purchased the same gift for someone—twice—without realizing I’ve done so, until I’m in the process of wrapping presents. I even had an occasion once where I wrapped a gift, only to end up partially unwrapping it to peek inside as to see what it was, so I could know who to address the tag to.

This isn’t a “getting older thing” with me, either, as I’ve had these issues as far back as I can remember—which isn’t saying much.  When I was a little girl, I had this ongoing thing where I could never get the names of two of my aunts straight. They were sisters; one was named Helen, and the other, Eva. It would be understandable if they had been identical twins, but they were several years apart in age, while one was tall, and the other one was quite short. At one point my mother, weary from trying to get me to learn who was who, happened to mention that Helen was taller than Eva. Well after years of confusion a light-bulb went off in my seemingly dim head; if I stacked the letters for “Helen” on top of each other, they were a higher stack than the pile spelling out “Eva.” After that brilliant discovery, I never forgot which aunt was which.  

Speaking of not remembering names, just recently—although I don’t recall exactly when—I awoke in the middle of the night, only to realize I wasn’t completely sure how to spell my middle name anymore—why on earth a person ponders such a thing at 2:00 a.m. is beyond me but that’s a whole other matter entirely. Was it Jeane or Jeanne? It took me a good ten minutes to figure it out.

Even though I have issues remembering things, I’m not even remotely an “old lady” yet; but if you ask my teenage son, I’m sure he’d argue that point. My memory is quite sharp, however, when it comes to anything embarrassing he’s ever done. Much to his dismay, I will guard those memories like priceless works of art, to unveil to his future wife and children.

Actually, there was more I was going to add here, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was…