Middle of March and I suddenly discover I’ve put up the same post
twice in succession in February: the 21st
and the 28th.
Was I especially busy the week between? If I was I can’t point to any
significant accomplishments. No, it’s pure forgetfulness, and that can be
ominous at certain times of life if you’re inclined to worry about your health.
Luckily, I’m not. With a clinic on-site and a medical group tracking
everything about you -- by computer, now -- it’s easy to slip into a mindset of
constant self-examination. You’re handed the notice for your next appointment as
you exit the office from the visit just completed. In effect, your health is
under constant surveillance. This was a great comfort for me when my mother was
101, but I don’t like it for myself. You keep looking for things, you’re liable
to find them.
As for memory, I get mixed messages from my brain. Working with words
all my life, it’s worrying not to be able to call up a word when I need it.
It’ll hang there just out of reach, and of course the harder I try the further
it will slip away. It’s like a cat; the more you reach for one the further away
it moves, staying just beyond your fingers. The saving of it is that once I
relax and stop trying, it will come of itself (the word and the cat).
Surprisingly, I find if I concentrate I can recall things like names
and events from pretty far back. There’s real satisfaction in calling up the
name of an old acquaintance out of the mists, although it usually happens when
you start wondering if he or she is still with us.
Anyway, I’m chalking up the February lapse to momentary carelessness,
neglect of routine. I usually mark posts as used at publication,
and I guess something must have distracted me when it was time to mark this one.
On the other hand, I’m not going back further than February looking
for trouble. Forget that.
