Have you noticed that as you enter your 40s-50s, trying to remember trivia becomes like an embarrassing and painful Jeopardy game, one with no timer and unlimited guesses? My husband and I were killing off gray matter watching the Idol results show when a commercial came on for the new movie 17 Again.
HUB: Wasn’t there a movie called 17 Again back when we were in college?
ME: I think so. Who was in that? Wasn’t it George Burns?
HUB: Yeah, George Burns! Who was in that with him?
ME: I remember he had a lot of hair, really thick.
HUB: Lots of hair… blue eyes… I know, it was the guy in that Bubble Boy movie.
ME: No. I remember the Bubble Boy movie. That was John Travolta.
HUB: Are you sure?
ME: Very sure. They brought his bubble cage thing out on the beach, and a girl kissed him through the glass. I kissed my mirror that night pretending it was John.
HUB: Not sure I needed that image. Okay, not the Bubble Boy guy. But the guy I’m thinking of… dark hair, lots of dark hair. And his eyes were too big. Blue and weird big. Maybe he was in an ice skating movie?
ME: Robby Benson!
DING DING DING! We laugh and congratulate ourselves. We were thinking of Robby Benson.
Who of course did not star in the old version of 17 Again with George Burns, a movie which was incidentally called 18 Again. The young guy in 18 Again was Charlie Schlatter, thank you IMDB. We never had any hope of remembering Charlie’s name, but we were accurate in that he did have a lot of hair.
We smile and lean back on the couch for more Idol, and I come to the sudden realization that we have become dorks - doddering, mentally-scrambled dorks. I don’t think we have always been dorks. I think we have just reached a time in our lives when it’s really hard to remember things, and our conversations often sound like mental fitness tests - game shows for our neurons.
I can imagine the scene in my temporal lobes, Alex Trebek on slowmo: “Dark hair…. Thick dark hair… blue eyes… big eyes… weirdly big eyes…”
Suddenly, one lone brain cell, sedentary for years, jumps off his little beanbag chair waving his tiny dendrites and screaming: “Who is Robby Benson!!! WHO IS ROBBY BENSON!!!!”
And the other brain cells are rolling their little nucle-eyes and shouting, “Sit your bad self back down on that beanbag fool! She hasn’t called on you in what? 15 YEARS? Hippocampus’ pet.”
My husband and I play daft memory games like these all the time now, and not always for entertainment. Sometimes we need each other to fill in the blanks of everyday sentences.
ME: Sweetie, I need your eyes. I’m making potatoes, and I can’t find my… thing with holes… (I pound my hand with my fist)…
HUB: Potato Masher?
ME: That’s it! It’s not here. (He walks over. It’s in the drawer. I’m looking right at it.)
We’re an excellent team, especially at social events. I know by just the slightest twitch in his smile when he can’t remember someone’s name, and it’s my cue:
ME: I’m sorry, have we met? I’m Annette. What's your name?
And my husband keeps a visual catalog of the entire house, so I can call him at any time:
ME: Honey, I’ve lost my car keys.
HUB: In the bathroom under your makeup container thing… you know… that white, wire…
ME: Basket.
HUB: Right. Makeup basket.
I’m pretty sure the idea of me being in a near-constant mental fog would have horrified my younger self. But this nearing-age-50 me likes the teamwork, holding my husband’s hand as we navigate a world in which names and details increasingly elude us.
It’s a gift, growing older with someone who’s gentle and kind and quick to laugh at all the things we can’t remember.
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Comments
All I can say is that it works even better when you are 70. Sue is only 54 but she has been with me for 26 plus years and can finish any sentence I start and then stumble and hesitate searching for the word. It is not that she has suddenly gotten smarter, she was always smart. But by having a doddering old husband as the years have passed she has learned that if she can't finish my increasingly incomplete sentences we simply won't have a conversation at all. ;-)
Monte
Hilarious!!!
my mental acuity & memory, and giving me
the poor results. It's like a game with us: who's the
more forgetful? Well, I supose that's a way of staying sharp.
Isn't it interesting that we all have popular culture in the brain?
I wonder what the "people in the old days" had for content?
Best. Jim
Hi psycho - ty for noticing nucle-eyes; it's probably not really that funny but it made me giggle.
OE- TY! Ever since I changed my avatar I've been feeling hotter, perkier, and more calcium enriched.
Larry, I start every morning with hot tea and the NYT crossword. (Also guess I'll take your word on not wanting to know.)
Monte, I loved your sweet reply, and mother, ty and ty for reading!
Hi Jim - did you get the movie star names above before I revealed them? Just testing! ;-)
Extra note to Ric Tresa - I love my new banner!!! It's like Christmas to me.
Rest assured, you're not alone; I've been senile since I was 12. My 5yo finishes my sentences when I'm feeling verbally aphasic. This is very scary.
I feel as if my brain is one of those old, old computers from the early 90s; the kind which always made those scratch-scratching sounds as it was searching for files. It would take about 15 minutes to boot up. Yeah, that's pretty much what my age 46 brain feels like for me.
Great post and beautifully written, by the way....
Suzie – just purchased my first reading glasses and a little beaded necklace to hold them! I feel like such a hip librarian!
Juliet – I think all of our children find our existence on this earth baffling. I’m looking forward to an update on Ben.
Lisa, I’ve tried to describe those old computers to my daughter. Mine not only scratched, it groaned! And judging from how many times I have to refer to the online thesaurus, my brain is groaning as well! We should do a post about remembering songs sometime. When I have trouble understanding lyrics, I have always supplied my own special words. Thus Steve Miller’s “Big ol’ jet airliner” became “Big ol’ jet and a light on…”
Fab – “got to have others involved to remember shit…” - oh thank you thank you for my laugh this morning! Hilarious.
Seriously, though, I am concerned that this dependence on the computer to remember for us will have a deleterious effect on the memory function of generations to come.
Ah yes these conversations can move along strange pathways. I'll rate this entry if I can remember to do so. We like you Annette, we really do!
Oh, nearly forgot, Hells Bells wasn't that Sandra Dee as Helen Keller you were trying to remember?
Tom, I’m wondering about the long-term effect of computer use myself. On the good side, you can get instant answers for things when you used to have to call all of your friends, and finally, the trusty reference librarian. Come to think of it, Redstocking - weren’t reference librarians our original Google? Maybe you guys should be getting some kind of royalties!
Thanks Emma, Hells Bells, and MJ – looking forward to your next posts. And JT – have we met? If not, glad to see you, and I’m putting you on my list so I can check out your blog today.
Have an awesome day everyone!
Dropped by your blog... unless I'm missing something, you've got some writing to do! (Sorry - retired English teacher habit, always givin' out the homework assignments.) Looking forward to knowing you better!