Look, I know we’re not supposed to be all down on ourselves as a general rule, it’s bad for our karma or something, but this isn’t just me being all Eeyore-y. This is fact.
I have gotten piles stupider as I have aged. It doesn’t appear to be due to anything other than sheer old-ness. Maybe it’s inevitable. Your brain just gets full and stuff starts falling out. 40 years of crap is stuffed in there; there’s no surprise that I’ve forgotten the name of my second grade teacher. But the thing is, I’ve gotten stupider in ways that are starting to seriously horrify me. To wit:
- I have started to misspell vital words. I find myself typing “there” for “their” or “loosing” for “losing” (much the same as Loralee was saying yesterday.) When this happens, I want to stab myself.
- I forget what year it is. More times than I care to count, I have written “2001″ instead of “2011″. But honestly, somehow, 2001 feels more comfortable. 2011 looks all space-agey, like we should be flying through the air and carrying Star Trek communicators and … oh.
- When I was young, I used to see TV programs or something where people would drift off in to a reverie and not even hear people talking to them. That never happened to me. It was total bullshit, I thought. They had to be faking it, pretending not to hear. Because I never missed a trick. I always heard everything, took in everything, remembered everything. I could simultaneously listen to a conversation beside me and to the teacher talking and… sorry, what were you saying?
- It used to be that I sucked at names, but I always remembered a face, always remembered meeting someone. Now, to my horror, I find myself meeting people two and three times for the first time before I actually remember actually having had a conversation with them ever. Except they remember meeting me, so I just look like a douchebag.
With age is meant to come wisdom… isn’t it? Not bad grammar and forgetfulness and cantankerousness? Is it just that we’re super busy, or is it that we just don’t care about little things like grammar anymore?
Certainly, I think I am wiser in some respects. I no longer get up in arms about things that are truly irrelevant, nor do I think the entire world should just bow down and do as I say. (Although, if you were to come to your senses and acknowledge me as your true intellectual leader, I wouldn’t say no.)
But the decline of my day to day mental acuity is disturbing, if only in the fact that I’m no longer infallible. Their. I said it.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ugh, the misspelling thing happens to me ALL the time now. I don’t know whether it’s lazy typo fingers or just early dementia, but I find myself relying on (whispers) spell check.
Also? I have turned into THAT WOMAN who takes three years to dig her pennies out of her wallet at the cash register.
Shoot. Me. Now.
DaniGirl recently posted..The one with the gas leaks. Plural. As in, more than one.
OH MY GOD ME TOO WITH THE PENNIES. What IS that?
In my most recent post, I discuss how my memory fails me so much these days. My stepmother says it’s hormones. I say it sucks ass.
Me too, lady. Me two.
Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah recently posted..Laundry Detergent and Farts
I’ve lost my mind too. It’s out there somewhere with my library card.
That being said, in all seriousness, make sure your Vitamin B levels are okay. I know more than one woman who thought they were completely losing it and then discovered that their Vitamin B level was through the floor. Once they upped the Vitamin B levels (unfortunately it usually involves shots of the stuff), they found that they were sharper and had better memories.