Dealing with memory issues is such a strange part of growing older. The smallest thing can trigger a memory of an event that happened 20 years ago. Other things just seem to fade away. Lately there has been a TV commercial about early signs of Alzheimer’s. It shows a woman who can’t find her keys and her husband tries to help her find them. The commercial ends with warnings that this could be an early sign of the disorder. So imagine how I felt this week when I lost a set of keys. I had just walked into the house with them and they “disappeared ”. I looked everywhere for them. I do mean everywhere—including the freezer, the bathrooms, under the furniture and the garbage. I was beginning to have paranoid fantasies of someone breaking into the home and stealing them. After two days I gave up and had another set of keys made.
This morning I found the keys. They were bunched up in the workout shorts I had been wearing. I had taken the shorts off and forgotten the keys were in them. They were not evident at first because of the material of the shorts. The more I think about this, the less concerned I get. I have always had things “disappear”. I once lost another set of keys for over a year and a half. I think this happened in my mid 40s. I have no idea what will disappear next. I just have to accept that this has always been an issue. My wife is trying to come up with some increased structure so it doesn’t happen as much, but I’m sure I will find a way to overcome any effort she makes.
Names, titles, events just seem to slip in and out. I can be talking and all of a sudden not remember the title of a book or an author’s name. It will come back to me later almost like the keys that magically reappeared. Last week I was with a friend and we both began to laugh about how frustrated he became one time with how slow a driver I am. He was sitting next to me and put his foot on the accelerator. I just had to steer and swear loudly. The more we talked the more it seemed that this had just happened. I think that’s the thing about getting older. I have this gigantic hard drive inside my head that is packed with material and images of the past. Lately I have been going thru old pictures for a project for my son’s wedding. I look at pictures of him as a child and have trouble accepting that he is a man in his 30s. I also look at pictures of my wife and I back then. We were so young. Our children were so young. It just doesn’t seem that long ago.
Every age has its challenges and it’s benefits. One of the benefits of getting older is all of the memories—especially the happy ones. I suppose I could focus on the sad ones too, because they are also a part of who I am. I once heard Carl Whitaker, one of the icons of family therapy, talk about this. He was then in his mid 70s. He told us that if he tried hard enough he could bring back all the memories, the sounds, the smells, the places, the words and the people that were present when his father had died more than sixty years ago. He used this to tell us that this meant relationships never die. People in our lives live on in one way or another. One of my colleagues used to ask how often you hear your parent’s words coming out of your mouth. This surprised me because of how true it was.
What are the important memories – the ones you really don’t want to lose? That is a really difficult question. I suppose we could all say weddings, births, graduations, vacations, etc. However the mind stores everything. Sometimes the memories we don’t want can come flooding back. I had a number of patients with PTSD from Vietnam. They were symptom free for years, until random sights, smells, people would start something. One man was walking in the city and he suddenly found himself next to a family group from someplace in Asia. He heard them talking in their language and immediately had a severe panic attack. Another man was locked in his basement for two days because of fireworks on the 4rth of July. They wanted to never think of their time in VietNam again.
I think the challenge to accept everything and work thru it is what makes us who we are. I keep thinking of how diamonds are made. Before they become diamonds they are lumps of coal and have to be subjected to immense pressures for thousands of years.
Sometimes I still feel like a lump of coal, but sometimes I do feel like I’m beginning to shine. I think it depends on just continuing to accept every part of where I’ve been, whom I’ve known, and what I’ve done. I know that there are people, places, and things that will continue to disappear. I just have to not get upset and be ready when they come back.