Do You Sometimes Miss Your Mind?
I’ve never officially had amnesia, have you? And yet, I swear that I have moments of absolute diagnosable, certifiable, mind-erasing amnesia. Yesterday morning I actually gussied myself up in real clothes, and even dabbed on some makeup, so that I wouldn’t look like I died in my sleep at my 10:30 appointment with Erin to review next year’s Medicare plan. Seeing that I had a half-hour to kill before having to leave the house, I moseyed outside to pick some fresh mint for the little vase by my kitchen sink. I was only going to be a few minutes so I left my phone plugged in on the charger on the counter. Erin never saw me, I never saw her.
I came back into the kitchen over an hour later with double the amount of mint that I normally pick, and a fabulous recipe for savory mint-infused chicken, compliments of my neighbor, Paul! But, as I reached for the little vase, the light from my phone caught my eye, and suddenly the part of my mind that went blank for the last hour, immediately re-filled itself with the morning’s earlier information! Erin. There she was, right there in my kitchen, showing up as two voicemails and one text message, reaching out to see if I was OK. “I’m really hoping that you’re alright,” she said, “because you’re known around here as ‘that super nice lady that always shows up an hour early and sits here reading her book.’ You aren’t here and you haven’t called!”
Immediately calling her back, only to learn that appointment slots are as scarce as tickets for game seven of the World Series, I settled for a Zoom meeting this Friday, promising her that I would set two alerts on my phone and even tape a big note to my IPad. But, I couldn’t stop wondering how my mind could go that blank, as if some kind of “geriatric amnesia” had just hijacked my mind’s contents for just a little while? Where the heck did the Erin information go while Paul and I were sharing our spearmint culinary secrets?
We all joke around that we must be “losing our minds” when this stuff happens to us, but have you ever considered that somewhere inside of you lies everything that has ever just simply dropped right out of your head, only to resurface at some random time in the future, when you no longer need it or can’t do a damn thing about it? Think about how many times you’ve said to someone, “I forgot what I was about to say! Darn! It was really important! It’ll probably come back to me as I’m driving home.”? Then, there you are in the shower, working shampoo through your hair, and boom! It’s back! Like it’s your mind showing back up, laughing at you and asking, “Did you miss me?”
Now THAT is something to think about that certainly wasn’t on yesterday’s bingo card! “Do I miss my mind when it sometimes disappears?” Or, do I just take it in stride, trusting that it will make it’s way back to me, carrying with it the same information that it left with, fully in tact? Maybe this is why we tell ourselves, “it’ll probably come back to me while I’m driving home,” because we know it isn’t gone forever, it’s just disappeared for a while, lost on some mini mental vacation joyride somewhere inside of us?
I laughed at my own ridiculous pondering. Then I decided to cheerfully accept that my mind plays tricks on me, like a prankster temporarily harboring all its stolen cerebral goodies and capriciously reloading them at the oddest of times. And, I’m resting assured that I’ve taken the necessary measures so that I won’t miss my Zoom meeting with Erin on Friday. Yesterday my mind went completely blank. “This is a great subject to write about!”, I smile and think to myself, as I grab my coffee, open my laptop and search for my glasses that are sitting right on the top of my head.
I’ve never officially had amnesia, have you? And yet, I swear that I have moments of absolute diagnosable, certifiable, mind-erasing amnesia. Yesterday morning I actually gussied myself up in real clothes, and even dabbed on some makeup, so that I wouldn’t look like I died in my sleep at my 10:30 appointment with Erin to review next year’s Medicare plan. Seeing that I had a half-hour to kill before having to leave the house, I moseyed outside to pick some fresh mint for the little vase by my kitchen sink. I was only going to be a few minutes so I left my phone plugged in on the charger on the counter. Erin never saw me, I never saw her.
I came back into the kitchen over an hour later with double the amount of mint that I normally pick, and a fabulous recipe for savory mint-infused chicken, compliments of my neighbor, Paul! But, as I reached for the little vase, the light from my phone caught my eye, and suddenly the part of my mind that went blank for the last hour, immediately re-filled itself with the morning’s earlier information! Erin. There she was, right there in my kitchen, showing up as two voicemails and one text message, reaching out to see if I was OK. “I’m really hoping that you’re alright,” she said, “because you’re known around here as ‘that super nice lady that always shows up an hour early and sits here reading her book.’ You aren’t here and you haven’t called!”
Immediately calling her back, only to learn that appointment slots are as scarce as tickets for game seven of the World Series, I settled for a Zoom meeting this Friday, promising her that I would set two alerts on my phone and even tape a big note to my IPad. But, I couldn’t stop wondering how my mind could go that blank, as if some kind of “geriatric amnesia” had just hijacked my mind’s contents for just a little while? Where the heck did the Erin information go while Paul and I were sharing our spearmint culinary secrets?
We all joke around that we must be “losing our minds” when this stuff happens to us, but have you ever considered that somewhere inside of you lies everything that has ever just simply dropped right out of your head, only to resurface at some random time in the future, when you no longer need it or can’t do a damn thing about it? Think about how many times you’ve said to someone, “I forgot what I was about to say! Darn! It was really important! It’ll probably come back to me as I’m driving home.”? Then, there you are in the shower, working shampoo through your hair, and boom! It’s back! Like it’s your mind showing back up, laughing at you and asking, “Did you miss me?”
Now THAT is something to think about that certainly wasn’t on yesterday’s bingo card! “Do I miss my mind when it sometimes disappears?” Or, do I just take it in stride, trusting that it will make it’s way back to me, carrying with it the same information that it left with, fully in tact? Maybe this is why we tell ourselves, “it’ll probably come back to me while I’m driving home,” because we know it isn’t gone forever, it’s just disappeared for a while, lost on some mini mental vacation joyride somewhere inside of us?
I laughed at my own ridiculous pondering. Then I decided to cheerfully accept that my mind plays tricks on me, like a prankster temporarily harboring all its stolen cerebral goodies and capriciously reloading them at the oddest of times. And, I’m resting assured that I’ve taken the necessary measures so that I won’t miss my Zoom meeting with Erin on Friday. Yesterday my mind went completely blank. “This is a great subject to write about!”, I smile and think to myself, as I grab my coffee, open my laptop and search for my glasses that are sitting right on the top of my head.