Senior Moments

Give me a minute and I’ll remember what I was writing about. Oh yeah, Senior Moments. You know, those times when you forget things. When something is on the tip of your tongue or in the corner of your brain.
Living in an over 55 community it’s a rather common occurrence. Or I think it is. Can’t really remember if it is or not. But give me another minute. Sometimes I can remember my entire third grade class and then not remember why I walked into the kitchen.
Did a job for some neighbors the other day. Was on a ladder balancing a ceiling fan. The lady of the house related a story about her senior moment. She was telling a friend about a movie she liked. A movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But she couldn’t remember the name of the movie so she kept describing it to her friend in hopes that it would jar her memory. Ironically, the movie was Total Recall.
Of course we all laugh at those moments. Usually in the retelling, if only to ourselves. In private. I don’t feel so bad about my lifelong inability to remember names anymore. It was introduced one minute and the next completely gone from my memory. It was quite embarrassing. Even tried name association. But after erroneously calling someone Mr. Hare because he reminded me of a rabbit, I gave that up. Now I just blame it on having a Senior Moment. Or as those of us that live here call it, a Solera Moment. That’s the name of our small community. No wait, yeah that’s it, just looked it up, so I know that’s correct.
Made a list of things needed at Home Depot. Things for jobs and things for home. Rewrote it several times. Grouped by where they would be found in the store. OK, so it’s a bit much, but in my days as a Handy Man it made sense and saved time. Plus, if needed, I could actually tear the list in half and give it to my helper. Naturally I had to translate it for him, but it was a good system. Anyway, so off I go to Home Depot. Half way there I realize that the list is still at home. In my office. Next to the light bulb that I was going to take along to ensure the correct replacement would be gotten.
But it’s part of life, these Solera Moments. Part of what is euphemistically called the aging process. Getting old, making our way down the road of life. A way of reminding us or our mortality. A reminder, gentle and otherwise, that it’s OK to be fallible. To be human. Well, gotta go, just remembered why I went to the kitchen in the first place.