It isn’t going to be the fires and floods and earthquakes but the little things that do me in. Like not being able to remember if I let all of Michael’s dogs back in, changed the kitty litter or the name of an actor from an old (or new) movie. Like how I routinely forget to enter a transaction in my checkbook or can’t come up with a particular word when I’m writing. All I really have to do is leave things (glasses, keys, purse, etc) in the same place each and every time and I would never lose things. I weary of wondering if I locked the door behind me or put that last cigarette out or turned off my headlights. I tell myself it’s absentmindedness (and that I’m entitled) but I don’t always seem to convince myself anymore. I sometimes feel a sense of dread that senility isn’t as far off or traveling as slowly as I’d like.
Just today, I left class to make a quick trip home to let Michael’s and my own dogs out. I hadn’t been back more than 10 minutes when I realized I couldn’t remember letting any of the dogs, mine or his, back in. Michael and I both knew the chances that I actually hadn’t were somewhere between slim and astronomical but it’s not something you can risk so as sure as I was that all the dogs were exactly where they were supposed to be, I made a second trip, just so I was absolutely, unshakably positive. It really should be a little easier to trust your instincts – Michael’s three were calmly sleeping in the front room and my two were in the sun room, napping peacefully on the love seat. Just as I had left them. Just as I knew they would be. It was a silly waste of time, energy, worry and gasoline.
These golden years are tinged with rust and these senior moments are (pun absolutely intended) getting old.
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