Don't be hard on yourself if forgetful

GOLDEN YEARS
May 8, 1998. The New Milford Times
Senior: Don’t be hard on yourself if forgetful
BY TERRI ANDERSEN Contributing Writer
I was visiting with some friends the other day, and the subject of age and memory came up. Everyone seemed to think that the mind just naturally deteriorates with age, and that memory loss is inevitable. Granted, age does take some toll on brain cells, but nowhere near what the average person thinks. Take the simple memory lapse of walking into a room to get something and then forgetting what it was you came into the room for. Do you think that’s age-related? There are a lot of people who do, but I think they’re wrong. I think that after a certain age, we’re just harder on ourselves than we ought to be. Watching my own children grow up, I’ve seen plenty of times when they forgot what they came into a room for, but did they even give it a second thought? Nope. They just went back to where they came from and realized right away what it was they needed if they wanted to continue whatever they interrupted themselves from doing. As we get older, if that happens to us, right away we think, “Uh-oh, I must be losing it. Sometimes I look at my brain as a computer that must be pretty fully loaded from all those years of storing information, and I wonder how much room there is for new data. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to squeeze more in, because I honestly think the brain is superior to any man-made device. - And I’m always amazed how that old information in the brain can be retrieved. When I can’t think of the name of someone or something, I go through the alphabet, and wouldn’t you know? My mind stops at the letter that triggers the name that’s been buried there someplace. Sometimes I wish I had a delete key to press when information I no longer need is using up valuable space. Take all the lyrics for songs like “Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats” or “Three Little Fishies.” I really could use that space in my brain for more short-term memory. But speaking of short term memory, I think sometimes the reason we don’t remember something we heard recently is because we weren’t paying enough attention in the first place. (We didn’t input the data and put it on Save.) There are times when I still find myself saying, “I must be losing it” when I goof up, but then I remind myself that everybody goofs now and then, and  it’s not that big a deal. I guess what I want to say to “veterans of life” like myself is: Don't be so hard on yourselves. See the things you do well, take comfort in the fact that you know a lot more about life than those “youngsters” do, and take time out to do whatever it is you find enjoyment in. (And don’t lose the capacity to laugh at yourself every now and then.)