Tag Archives: memory

and the answer is ….a lemon….

30 Oct

I think all of you beyond the age of 40 will relate to the occasional lapse of memory …you know… the  struggle to remember why you walked into the room, or what you were looking for.

I know MY brain sometimes feels like a jam packed hard drive that desperately needs de-fragging… So sometimes retrieving the pertinent facts can mean a bit of mental gymnastics. But I was struck by the effort it took today to retain a head full of numbers and regurgitate them in the right order.numbers

Having filled the petrol tank, I needed to get in a queue to pay the cashier. While reciting the pump number, the odometer number and the PIN number for the fuel card…over and over, I inched closer … but not quick enough. The line was long and I was afraid someone would distract or speak to me and the numbers would fall out of my head,. never to be seen again.

Now I know you are probably thinking …‘why on earth didn’t you just write them down?’  but I was determined to challenge myself, thinking I can do it …I can do it…I CAN DO IT…. (but what if I get to the counter and lose the lot …..eeek)

P1000955I played games in my head and tried visualising the ‘look’ of the numbers …as the queue moved slowly in the right direction ….FINALLY when I got there the attendant wanted to engage in some small talk, and all I could think was ‘please no ….let me spit my numbers out first’ … and anyway I don’t ‘do small talk’. Next minute the lovely woman asked if I had lost my voice, so rather that try to explain, I smiled and nodded yes, to which she replied … ‘oh don’t worry I have lots of mute customers’ ... what the ??? ….please just let me punch these numbers out and get out of here.

Fortunately all the repetition paid off and I was able to perform when the keypad was put in front of me, but it certainly was a stressful 7 minutes.

 

 

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grey matters…

14 Aug

brainI do get, that along with the ageing process, comes change….and that nothing quite looks or feels the way it used to…BUT what find hard to reconcile, is the rate that things ‘fall out’ of my brain these days.

I know  I’m not alone in admitting that I often walk from one room to the other and forget what I was going for … needing to re-trace my steps to start all over again. Thank goodness I work with quite a few ’50somethings’ who share my problem …. (now, that creates a great picture eh? all these middle aged office workers scratching their heads and walking in circles) …. but we DO get things done.

However the really tricky one is remembering peoples names for more than 10 seconds. I have begun to wonder if I am just plain inattentive?… if there is too much going on in my head?…. OR if I have brain damage? (at least THAT would explain what’s going on).

The other day  I caught up with a couple of interstate colleagues that I hadn’t met previously. I was pretty sure that I had their names all sorted after months of emailing …. BUT, having chatted over coffee for a while, I then went to introduce them to some of the crew … and I drew a complete blank !!! I had NOTHING!!  ZIP!! ZERO!!

Thankfully they were of  ‘similarly maturity’ and we all laughed about it … but seriously???? where did those names go ?

I wonder if we just cram so much in,  that our brain becomes like a computer hard drive that needs  a defrag… before it crashes…. (think it’s time for some maintenance).

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hazy memories …

9 Mar

Today saw me jumping straight back into the saddle (and the drivers seat) after putting life on pause for a couple of weeks while we circumnavigated the globe….but I soon realise that one’s memory can become rusty fairly quickly.

Having not needed to remember PIN numbers or passwords for a couple of weeks, I suddenly found myself with sweaty palms as I realised that I needed to buy petrol today. …Not only was there the pump number to remember, but also the six digit odometer reading and petrol card password….it went something like this ~ 16, 106466,2758

After queuing for several minutes and repeating the sequence of numbers over and over in my mind, I finally made it to the register to pay for my fuel. As soon as I swiped the card, an error message appeared and the attendant started asking me some questions (distracting from the delicate balance of the number sequence). The error indicated that my card had been stolen and therefore the account had been stopped … both interesting, but new news to my ears. credit cards

As  my heart skipped a beat and the queue behind me grew,  I reached of another plastic card to quickly pay (thinking I would sort out the mess later)… but you guessed it by the time I did, I had so many random numbers floating in my brain that I couldn’t retrieve the correct PIN number for THAT account.

Finally it all came together and I managed to get out of there without any further embarrassment… I’m hoping this was just an anomaly. I’m ‘50 something’… but not dead yet.’

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