Mental Accuity

The real "boogieman" of aging, for me, is the potential that my body will outlive my mind.  As I remember my youth, I had an incredible memory.  Even in my 50's, I was able to recreate the minutes of a day-long meeting from memory when the notes were accidentally destroyed. 

Now, it's pretty usual to have the episodes of "what did I come into this room for?"  And "going to the noun cupboard and finding it empty."  I find the latter most disturbing as I'm a hard-core authors' name-dropper.  I could always back up any argument by citing an expert on the topic.  Now, I'll be about to sum up the thesis of a book I've recently read and I find it's like a fading dream - the harder I reach for it, the more rapidly it disappears.

It doesn't help that I'm continually being told that this is normal.  My friends seem to be able to laugh it off.  I only pretend.

It has a slight upside.  Or maybe it's a bigger upside than I think.  I have to stay silent in conversation until I'm really sure about what I want to say.  And I have to listen a lot harder.