I've Forgotten What I Am Writing About .....

Saw a quote this morning, and yes, it was on Facebook, but it resonated so well as it related to a conversation had a couple of days ago with a temporary house guest I currently have.

The conversation began with her expressing frustration that she considers she is “getting older” because of her ability to remember certain names and facts seems to be on the increase with the increase in her age.

I had had the same conversation with friend of mine earlier that very day, a friend who is a mere and sprightly young twenty-something-year-old whereas I am a wiser and not quite so sprightly thirty-something-year-old.

The twenty-something-year-old thought that despite not wanting to acknowledge it, she is reminded constantly of her natural annual aging by the fact she keeps forgetting things.  Short term things and long term things. 

Short term relating to the usual situation where one walks into a room to get or do something but by the time you are in there you have forgotten what it is that you have gone into there for.

                                 

And then there are the recollection things from some years ago.  The house guest was trying her best to remember the name of someone who was relevant to our conversation but no matter how hard she squinted her eyes and dug deep into the brain cells, she could not bring to the forefront of her brain the person’s name.  This was despite the fact she had been a close associate of the person for some period a few years ago.

On both occasions I chuckled at their frustration.  The house guest was a teenager by comparison to my other friend and I but was already putting her momentary amnesia down to age.  How little she knows what she is in for.  If she feels frustration now, imagine the great sense of intense and continual frustration she will feel when she hits my numeric age.

It happens to me constantly; getting up off this chair in front of the computer to go do something really important and before I am across the hallway the process and purpose of the important thing I was about to do has totally gone.  Nowadays, being very used to this happening, I pause momentarily, try to recall what the purpose of my standing and walking three steps was for, then laugh aloud, shake my head in bemusement, and then head straight for the pantry as that’s the next best place to be.  

That is particularly so at this period in time because some really kind friend recently presented me with one very large and very numtious fruit cake which, no matter what my resolve was about not touching it until a special occasion, the resolve has not withstood those forgetful pauses hence the fruitcake beckons.  The fruitcake beckoning is aided by the fact it had been well soaked in rum prior to the baking.  It literally brings warmness to my inner core and makes me very happy.

                          

  At the same time it is fulfilling a need of reward for the aging process of forgetfulness.  Its purpose is being well patronised.

It all has a circular purpose.  Because I am prone to head to the pantry at every forgetful moment it means my later conscience then tells me that I need to go out and exercise to balance out the negative and long lasting effects of the fruit cakes, slices, chocolates, caramel slices and whatever else is awaiting in the pantry.  Thus the sole purpose of why I jog, swim, heave weights in a gym or sit on a bicycle seat that is going nowhere is to burn of the calorific intake of forgetful moments.

And folk think I do all that because I am a strong minded, strong willed woman, whose goal setting it to be admired.  Ha! 

                               

As for long term memory loss on my part;  many decades ago I realised the Brain Gods had blessed me with loss of long term memories as a way of blocking out the negatives of the past and allow me to enjoy the now positives.  Therefore I have never worried about forgetting things from long ago.  Indeed, I find it an absolute positive aspect of memory loss.  I makes it so very rewarding whenever I am with old friends and they reminisce (as old friends tend to do more and more these days – the older they get the more they live in reminisces), and talk about an incident, a person, a happening from long ago and my brain lights up with an almost audible ting of a deep-in-the-brain-mass-wave-length with teeny snippets of that memory long since buried illuminating and sparking yet more brain waves of the memory.  The more it sparks the more detail of it comes back.

It turns into a thrill and delight to relive and enjoy the memory (or not, dependent on the memory) all afresh, all anew.

So it was years ago I stopped fretting and worrying I had forgotten things in the past as one day I came to the realisation that my brain was merely a personal floppy disc.  Yes, floppy discs have long since become redundant in this modern world, but for us less modern ones they are still quite useful and reliably functioning human tools. 

I worked out that my particular brain works in the manner of a floppy disc as opposed to the more modern hard drives.  

                           

That is, there is only so much storage space floppy discs can hold and once that storage space is filled excess and less used memory cells are then dropped off the end of it and miraculously transferred to my personal Cloud. 

The Cloud being somewhere up in the ether, floating and following behind me at all times, which has a lifetime guarantee to be able to access the stored memories for recollection whenever required.   It’s magic.  

Mind you, recollection is not instant for there has to be a few moments of whirring and whizzing while its engines start up before beginning to download;  but overall it works reliably well once it begins whizzing after one encounters or meets with an old friend or associate.

Having a floppy disc is a wonderful thing.  It means most of the bad memories drop off and go into The Cloud, which means one cannot dwell long on them; but when the good bits come out of storage by yet another coincidental meeting with someone, the joy of the reliving is almost as good, if not better, than when it was lived all that time ago.

                                          

Whether twenty-something, thirty-something (as I will remind you that I am), forty-something, or one foot in the grave  …  do not worry about apparent memory loss you may find you are experiencing because the memories are in fact not lost but stored, with ready access to be resurrected as and when required and with fulfilling enjoyment. 

And remember (a most relevant word) they have merely been handily transferred to The Cloud storage because of the fact you have lived so much more than those who are younger; thereby you are the one who is wiser, more interesting, more astute, more knowledgeable, more resourceful, more skilled, more cunning, more enchanting, more interesting and more mentally adroit than your younger associates. 

So, fret not as you turn another birthday.  Yearn not for your youthfulness; the floppy discs of the younger are more empty than filled.  That makes us seemingly memory-loss ones far, far more consummate individuals than those younger smart-ass, smart alecs.

    

Now, I came in here to do something ... what the heck was it?........

Body Conscious Musings

There are only a few benefits that come with getting toward an ‘older’ age.  And I’m not talking about the Super Gold Card old, or the old age when we think we’re successful by achieving a disabled parking card status so that one can finally drive straight into the best parking spaces in busy car parks, shopping centres and burgeoning city streets.

                   

In fact, I’m not talking about being anywhere near THAT old.  I am referring to being just a ‘little’ older than being younger.  Like the age I am now, thirty-eight-something.

I was reminded of this when in the swimming pool changing rooms this morning and could not help but notice a young lady whose gym bag was next to mine on the bench.  She was obviously in the process of dressing for her work day after having had a cleansing shower post her gym or swimming pool work out.  Usually I don’t notice who is next to me in the changing rooms at that busy rush hour in the mornings, everyone is so busy that you are in your own world going through the well practiced routine of showering and changing.  Today, her being next to me was made obvious by the manner in which she was attempting to dress.  Well, the awkward, time consuming and difficult way in which she was trying to dress.  I could not help but stop for a moment and glance subtly over to observe what was happening.

The contortionist manner in which she was changing did have me ponder of “why bother?”  It looked so jolly awkward and difficult.  She was bent over, in half, as bent half over as the Old Woman in the Shoe was; you know what I mean, bent at the waist so that her legs were vertical from the ground up, but from the waist up she was horizontal with her head and eyes looking directly down at the rather grubby, concrete floor in women’s changing room.  Or perhaps she was just checking her toe nails out?

Rather like this  ..

                          

No, I dismissed the fleeting toe nail theory quickly as draped over this ‘bent pin’ body was a very large bath towel.  So large was it that it completely covered all her body except the feet at the bottom and her head which had to be visible as she was in the process of anxiously looking and feeling around in her gym bag for her under clothes.  As she rummaged around in her gym bag  I was tempted to lean over and say, “Can I help you with that?”, but thought better of it.  Heaven knows the fright that would have given her while she was in her own little private world under that giant’s towel.

There was a sense of desperation though and for another moment I thought that perhaps she had discovered her underwear was not in the bag but, as many of us do, left neatly on the bed at home where it was put prior to final gym bag packing earlier that morning or late the night before.

But no, suddenly an unpretentious pair of matching knickers and brassiere emerged and whilst one was put carefully on the change room bench the other was now to be somehow attached to the body without the giant’s towel slipping or sliding off the body, baring yet more skin than the feet, hands and face.

Now it should be noted that the women’s’ changing room does have private cubicles for those who do prefer some modesty but it would appear the six or so cubicles were already taken by others thereby meaning this poor thing had the dubious job of dressing among the other twenty or so ladies who, without any thought of modesty, just rush to the showers while still wrapping their standard size towels around them, then rush back out to the bench, dry body off without even contemplating if someone else is looking.

But I did begin to feel for this young thing; she would have been in her early twenties, for it was plain to see that she was going to an extra ordinary amount of grunting and groaning and clasping and grabbing to get her bra and knickers on whilst at the same time not allowing the giant’s towel to slip one inch for fear of skin being exposed and someone actually seeing her body.  It took forever, with several desperate grasps of the towel when she felt it may possibly drop. 

Once the underwear cladding had been achieved it was then time to put the rest of the day clothes on still maintaining no chance of any of the other women in the changing room seeing any part of the body.

During all this time I had gone to shower, returned, totally dried myself, gone to the mirror, dried my hair, dressed and was applying lipstick.  Effortlessly, smoothly, without stirred fears and anxieties, relaxed and with little else on the mind except the anticipation of the latte awaiting in the café.

But finally, underwear attired, dress attired, the Young Thing audibly sighed, stood upright and withdrew the towel.  To expose a perfectly formed body in workday clothing that began approximately two centimeters below the buttocks, finished about two centimeters above the nipple line and clung to the body so tightly that every male driver who would happen to drive past her in the street that day would create traffic mayhem by the head twisting caused as they drove by.

On a cold day like this.

Adorned on the feet were a pair of heels so high that I’m sure the local physio would be rubbing hands greedily at the anticipation of yet another sprained ankle injury due to modern day shoe fashion.

                           

So much effort.  So much time. To cover so little skin.  To expose so much skin. To every Tom, Dick and Harry.  Yet to cover up for every Pam, Sue or Mary.   

Huh?  I don't get it.  Why bother? 

Gosh.  I am so very glad I am that teeny bit older. Totally unbody conscious. Wiser.  Nonchalant.  Indeed, that situation is so contrary to my mature countenance.

I couldn't care less who in the women’s changing room saw my skin; and yet care very much more than my bench neighbour this morning that anyone outside the changing room sees so little of it.  For that they are no doubt all very grateful.

But, who cares!

                                

Waffle at the movies

I went to the movies last night – a 6.30 pm movie.  It was Friday night.  Tony and I used to frequent early Friday evening movies on a regular basis over the years.  We found the routine of meeting up for a movie early Friday evening meant we could unwind together over a pre-movie wine, catch the movie then come out and pick up a cheap dinner somewhere and be all relaxed, having dispelled any work-thinking brain cells and have the entire weekend to look forward to.

We were both working at the time (this is pre-tumour days), so by the time we walked out of the movie all our weekday work mental fatigue had gone – dispersed into the movie ether of either some terrorist being obliterated by a Bruce-Willis-type hero; or a French lady creating romantic-making chocolates; robots taking over the world; or weird black sheep on a killing spree.  Clearly we were open to all forms of ridiculous, spurious fantasy.

In post-tumour diagnosis days we continued as often as possible to maintain the Friday night routine, even though neither of us were working as it was another tradition we had that we maintained to make life as normal as possible.

Consequently we did get to see lots of movies – although in all fairness, we did tend to lean more toward the grown-up genre as transformers, alien and macabre people and creatures killing each other and entire planets did nothing to keep me entertained.  I have always had the fortunate habit of being able to fall deeply asleep throughout the majority of those movies; it would seem I was born with mental switch that enables me to completely block out the horrendous, explosive, world ending noises around me when the brain has gone dead from brain-dead entertainment.

Once Tony passed away there was a dearth of movie attendance as the few times I did go I felt the void by my side so greatly that, no matter the movie, I was unable to overcome the grief of the void -  meaning many of the movies I did go to by myself have also been totally obliterated in the memory banks as the entertainment absorption rate was almost zero.

However, life is moving forward and in the past year I have taken to always browsing the movie reviews in the early part of the week in hopeful anticipation that some reviewer may catch my curious attention by what they have written on a newly released feature.

This means that on most early Friday evenings I can be seen, the lone soul, in the foyer of either the Lido, Capitol or Rialto theatres in town.  They are the theatres that show grown up movies, therefore I don’t have the shuddersome option of queuing with the moronic populous who come armed with many dollars to purchase the expensive tickets, huge buckets of butter-coated popcorn, large bottles of Coke, and several noise-creating bags of potato chips.

      

Oh no, snob that I am, I queue with the fine folk, those old and wrinkled ones who buy the cheap senior citizen rated tickets and purchase either a Kapiti ice cream cone or a nice glass of Pinot Something – which I have witness has put some old sods fast a snoring sleep halfway through a foreign romantic.

Anyway, the purpose of this script it to say that last night I arrived rather early to the movie theatre so purchased a ticket and sat in a comfy lounge chair and people watched for almost an hour.

Without a Kapiti ice cream or Pinot Something.  Me, in my now miserly way, take along my own bottled water.  Bottled from the kitchen tap at home.

Most folk enjoy a relaxing hour or so of people watching at some time, none more so than someone on her own who has little else to do but fathom the lives of others whose heads pop up from an apparent hole in the floor as the escalator pushes the rest of their bodies up to floor level height and they walk toward the movie foyer ticket counter.

When I originally arrived in the movie theatre there were but a handful of folk milling around the bar chatting or standing in front of the notice boards reading reviews and previews of movies.  It was a fairly quiet, dull period with little for people watcher me to see.  By the time my movie was about to start the foyer area was jammed packed with people and the noise level loudly buzzing.

Folk had arrived as individuals meeting other individuals, in couples or in groups.  The longer I watched the more I realised the greater majority of those arriving were of the feminine gender.  Indeed, there was a period when I played the mental game of when would the next male head appear from that hole in the floor; and then, how many women would come up to how many men.

       

Overall, for the period I sat in that foyer I figured the male versus female quotient would have been approximately 30% to 70%.

If you were single, male and randy this would be the ideal place to bring along your basket of upturned bananas.  If at first rejected the populous was such that it would not take long for you to strike lucky.

I digress.  This new-found female-movie-attending phenomena of mine then posed the question, why?  Why so many women and so few men?

Then I figured, as the greater majority  of women in the foyer would have been forty-plus somethings, there must be more men in that age group who had the unfortunate problem of having kicked the bucket.  Result being their widowed wives, were like me, filling in their Friday nights too  …. 

Or  … a more rational reason could have been  …  most of those women did have husbands, at home; husbands who didn’t care what or where the spouse went, so long as he didn’t have to go with them.

Then of course there were the two groups of ladies who looked well into their 60’s, or more, had the appearance of being most intellectual by the manner in which they were discussing previous high brow movies they had been to see – who, I would confidently say – once did have husbands but have since realised they were superfluous to requirements and their enjoyment was in seeking the fellowship of their like minded womanhood.  All power to them.

Irrespective of all the above.  It did remind me of the statistics I had heard on National Radio earlier in the day that females born this year have a greater likelihood of living until they are 81+ years old.  And those boys born this year will now have the happy outlook of living longer than their fathers, or father’s fathers did, and now live to 78+ years of age.  The 3 year age difference of men dying earlier than women has reduced from the 4 years it was predicted sometime in the 1990’s.  The life expectancy gap of male versus female is now closing.

On those statistics, maybe the Rialto foyer, in the year 2095, may have a male-female ratio of 45% to 55%.  And if those statics keep reducing, by the year 2125 it may be 50-50 percent.

Then what would I have think about when sitting in the Riato foyer?   Oh, there’s another quandary for me.

Things improve with age. I’m approaching magnificent.