The Edge of Fifteen, May 15 – 20, 1974
A few winters ago, I pulled into my parking space in my darkened garage and then spent five minutes looking for a hat that was on my head. Nearing 60, and already worried about aging and the diminishment of so many abilities, it was more than worrisome.
I realized later what must have happened. I pulled off my beanie and threw it on the passenger seat when I began driving. When I pulled into my space I must have absent-mindedly immediately put it on my head.
But at that moment, I turned off my ignition and reached for the hat that wasn’t there on the passenger seat. I turned on my interior light and looked on the back seat as if the hat had migrated over because, perhaps, it was too warm in the front seat. I looked on the passenger seat floor and ran my hand under the seat. I felt junk food crumbs but no hat. I pulled the passenger seat forward and looked for the hat on the back seat floor. Not there. I pulled the passenger seat back and looked for it on the front seat floor again. Nothing there.
I’ll tell you what was there: Frustration and anger and impatience. The hat had to be somewhere in the car. I did have a hat. I wasn’t so far gone that I would have mis-remembered bringing a hat.
Somehow, eventually, it occurred to me that the hat was on my head. For sure, it wasn’t an “a-ha” moment. It was more of “I’m an idiot” moment. An idiot who was not going to age gracefully.
That’s been bothering me since it happened, but less so when I read on my Facebook feed about someone who was using the flashlight on her phone to look for her phone.
Maybe I’m not so bad after all.
I expect my intellectual abilities to fade as I age, but from my diary it’s apparent that I’ve been having memory problems since I was at least 15. There is page after page of “don’t remembers.” I know I didn’t do anything memorable but that wasn’t a reason not to write. I wrote a lot about the boring things I did such as things I ate and the sports I played. And similar things so boring that my biographer would be disinterested if I ever have one.
It’s more than probable that I was just too lazy to write something down.
But I sure did get a lot of time in practicing my signature.
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