I DON’T really know where to place it; could it be due to the length of time at being cooped in the house or anywhere, a case of age-related regressed memory, the pandemic or just plain pleasing personality even.
My doctora batchmate had once kidded me, it must be Alzheimer’s kicking in. However, a private joke that it might have been at the time, I would rather still go with a pleasing personality.
The thing is, being forgetful has a spectrum that is dedicatedly all its own, and justifying it might as well be to one’s benefit always.
Forget about charging it to a medical condition or to the natural ravages of aging, sooner or later it will make a house-call on everyone. From forgetting where you last placed your reading glasses (that’s nestled comfortably on top of your head) to more serious ones like missing your maintenance meds, the different degrees of forgetfulness are always things of legend. (Be sure to consult with your local resident oldie on this one.)
One could say that it could also be a bit like being absent-minded, but that if that were the case, it would mean one must have been thinking of other things and therefore, just being preoccupied at that. Missing out completely and simply forgetting is an entirely different animal.
Yesterday’s activity was the perfect example. After more than a year of not visiting any shopping mall due to the pandemic, we finally decided that it was necessary that we forego with online shopping for the moment, and visually check out the goods that we needed at the house. Where else to go, but in a good-old mall of course; at one that was relatively near our mountain abode.
I don’t know, it must have been the excitement of finally doing real groceries and such, or being finally inside a much cooler atmosphere for a change that got over me but definitely, I was just so far ahead of myself on this one.
True enough, even with me being extra careful to social-distance myself from the few Sunday shoppers, every moment had felt like being a small kid once again who had finally gotten the chance to visit the corner candy store after a long while. My closest thing to time travel in a long while.
When we had finally queued at the cashier and when my mate asked me for my senior card and booklet, only then did I realize, everything in this life is temporary and a good feeling really doesn’t last. Matey and I had later joked that my late brother’s ex had said it best when she boasted a long time ago during a few times with us doing groceries. “Wherever you go, never forget to leave your booklet in your handbag because who knows?”
Again, for myself I am obligated to ask this 66-dollar question. Could it be the child-like excitement, old-age, quarantine fatigue or Mr. Al Zheimer knocking at the door? My reply is always constant: pleasing personality. Anytime.
