In my last post I was bemoaning the fact that I am over 60 by a couple of years now. Collecting Social Security very soon. A pensioner. I am not even going to go into the ego shattering vision that I see in the mirror in the morning, it’s mostly the mental part of it that bothers me most. A developmental milestone for children is when they can follow a set of instructions – first do this, then that and finish up with a third thing. I feel like I am going the wrong way on that scale. Even though my lists are spawning secondary and tertiary lists, there’s way too much that is slipping between the cracks.
For instance, today I am sorting through my purses. I need a bigger one for the trip so I have to decide what to put in the trip one and what to leave behind in the everyday purse. So I take stuff out and put it in piles – throw out, move to new purse, keep in old purse. Hah, I see my lists of Saints. It is pretty tattered so I go to the computer to print a new list. Arriving at the computer I think, oh, Sarah might like to have a list. So I email her and wait for her response. (She’s very quick about getting back to me.) While I am waiting, I notice some bills that need to be paid. So I do that. Sarah emails back that, yes, she’d like a list. I print that up. Then I go into the bathroom and start working on my new cosmetic case.
Much later I walk back into the family room where the guts of my purse are lying in piles. Piles that I no longer have any idea of their meaning. I am actually surprised by seeing my purse project out there. It has totally left my consciousness. It takes me a moment to calm down from the fright of not remembering that I had this task in progress. Suppose it had been something I had been cooking?
So getting older is freaking me out. It’s not so much that I am having trouble with the Friday and Saturday NY Times crossword puzzles, I can rationalize that away. It’s more that my internal lists are fading away. I used to juggle all this stuff in my head. What’s in store for the next 20 years?