“If you forget where you left your keys that’s one thing, but if you forget what a key is for and how to use it, that’s another thing”
I went down to my office this morning, the cellar space we rent next door to our apartment building. In the elevator on the way down, I met one of my neighbors. Like me, she comes from another country and like me, she likes to talk so the ride down was spent in a lot of animated catching-up chatter and laughter. Arriving at the ground floor, we went our separate ways and I continued on to my office door. I quickly unlocked the first door but when it came to the second door, I found myself trying to put my apartment door key into the lock. Now, please understand, the keys look completely different so it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. It took me a second or two but then I chose the correct key from my key ring, opened the door and went in. But just those few seconds of hesitation when I got to the door, realized the key wasn’t working and I needed another key, was enough to get me worried. Is this the beginning?
My husband’s mother had alzheimers – by the end of her life she no longer could recognize anyone, not even herself and hadn’t a clue where she was. In my family, my grandmother, my father and my mother were all still-sharpened pencils at the end of their lives. Maybe the points were a bit dulled, not quite as sharp as they once were, but still very capable of writing. So I’m hoping I’ve inherited that from them. But still, I worry.
Just those few seconds when I stared at the door, the key in my hand and didn’t quite know why I wasn’t getting in and what should I do about it, was enough to make me wonder – am I starting to lose it? Is this how it begins – in tiny little moments?
I once had a discussion about memory, way-back-when in New York City with my New York shrink. She told me that you remember the things, events, etc which, as they are happening, you are truly involved with at the time they are happening. In other words if you are walking to the bus stop but are thinking of what you will be making for dinner you probably won’t remember the walk to the bus or what you saw on the way. And if you are in the grocery store to buy dinner but are still thinking about the conversation you had with your neighbor on the way to the bus stop, you will walk up to the meat section, look at it and have no idea why you are there. Now that kind of thing happens to me a lot. And I know I’m not alone in that. It also happens to my son and he is only 22 so I don’t think it has anything to do with age or Alzheimer’s. I guess it has more to do with paying attention. A friend of mine, a born and bred, true, native New Yorker, who in all her almost 70 years has never had a drivers license, once told me she probably would be a terrible driver because her mind wanders. Now this woman is a real sharp cookie so its not like she is getting dim. But her mind wanders. And I guess that’s the thing I’m getting at – because my mind wanders too. I’m not saying its a bad thing either. Because no matter how far afield I wander off, I always come back to where I am. And I still remember how to unlock the door.