Unreliable Memories

In my head, I sometimes still imagine myself to be about twenty-one. My brain and my body, however constantly remind me that I am in fact, approaching three times that age. Just about the only exercise I can still indulge in is walking (and in truth, that is becoming increasingly problematic, with various muscles and joints seizing up, or aching). I tried running last week, through necessity rather than choice, and after a couple of hundred yards I was hopelessly out of breath, and my legs were on fire; I literally could not run for my life.

As frustrating as it is when your body won't do what you want it to, it is understandable, with age. Routine tasks, like vacuuming and cleaning are becoming more onerous and being broken up by regularly sitting down with a nice cup of tea at an alarming rate. I appreciate that that is probably inevitable, having passed three-score years, but what is less palatable is the increasing unreliability of my brain, most specifically my memory.

As one gets older there are things that take on new meanings. An "all-nighter" is now when I go to bed and don't have to get up for the loo during the night. "Getting lucky," is walking into a room and remembering why I'm there, and of course, the biggest lie I tell myself now is, "I don't need to write that down, I'll remember it." That last one is why I have a small notebook which, while it is mostly for shopping lists, is invaluable when I need to make a note of something that I would otherwise kid myself I could remember. Having a shopping list is important for two reasons; it disciplines me to buy only what I need - it really does limit my impulse buying - and it also means that I am far less likely to come back from the shops without the one thing I really went for in the first place. I have also had to resort to a diary, something that I eschewed for the many years in which I could remember appointments, social events and the like, but now find that I would completely lose track of without one.

I used to regularly take part in quizzes, and would take great pleasure in dredging up some obscure fact to answer a question. Lately, it has become increasingly more difficult to drag some things up from the depths; the data is still there, just elusive and difficult to retrieve. And there are some things that I try to call to mind that only surface when I am not consciously trying to remember them, hence waking up in the morning and suddenly knowing what the answer was to four down in that crossword I was doing the day before. Names are becoming particularly tricky these days; I think that they have always been one of my blind spots, but increasingly, whether it is meeting someone after a long time, or just simply thinking about someone and trying to identify them, I find putting a name to a face is getting harder and harder.

While my memory for facts is still generally okay, if sometimes a little slow, my memory for conversations, which has never been especially good, is now awful. My wife, on the other hand, has a brilliant memory for conversations, which she often uses in evidence against me. A few years ago we had to replace our microwave oven, and looking at various models, I suggested one. Val reminded me that when we had bought the one we were now replacing, we had talked about different types and dismissed the one I was suggesting. "That was seven years ago," I replied, amazed that Val remembered, but not surprised that I did not.  I suppose that the possibility exists, albeit an unlikely one, that given my unreliable memory for this sort of thing, Val could have invented that conversation on the basis that I wouldn't remember one way or the other.

 In truth I sometimes struggle to remember a conversation from seven days ago, so no chance with one seven years ago. Actually, I do sometimes have a good memory for conversations, except what I remember turns out to be out of date.  For example, perhaps Val and I will discuss what time to go out, and will settle on ten o'clock, but then will have a further conversation and alter that to ten-thirty. I will remember the first arrangement, but forget the second conversation and will therefore be waiting impatiently by the front door at ten, while Val gets ready, with me convincing myself that she is being tardy. "Don't you remember, we originally said ten, but then said ten-thirty?" she will ask. No, patently I don't remember.

Like many people, passwords are an area where my memory frequently lets me down. There are some that I use frequently that I have little problem remembering; others, used less often, are more of an issue. I have had to resort to a spreadsheet (password protected, of course) to keep track of the growing number (119 at present) of them, all of which have different requirements in terms of length, upper and lower case characters, numbers, special characters, etc, etc. Even so, I still have some that I appear not to have recorded, or which I have had to change and failed to update my records. This results in the use of the 'Forgotten Password?' option. Frustratingly, it seems all too often that when I update such passwords I inevitably get a message saying "New password cannot be the same as previous password," and recently was actually refused a password I wanted to use on the grounds that the site deemed it too easy to guess. The maxim that passwords should be easy to remember but hard to guess is a good one, except making a password that is hard to guess usually makes it equally difficult to remember.

There is one area in which my memory is sadly all too good, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I am able to recall in excruciating detail, incidents from both the distant and recent past where I have said or done something embarrassing. You know the sort of thing, saying something indiscrete about someone to a third party, only to discover the object of your remarks standing right behind you. These are the sort of memories that rise, unbidden, at random moments. I guess I am also reaching that age when I can call to mind not only these uncomfortable memories, but can also recall other, less embarrassing incidents from years ago, but not something that happened yesterday. Equally, my increasingly unreliable memory is often at odds with what other people recall, or proven faulty when confronted with written evidence of an event.

All too often I get nagging thoughts that I have forgotten something important, and even writing this blog, I'm sure that when I got the idea there was something that I felt that I should include, but now can't remember. Give me a while, it will come to me...