Have you ever walked into a room and once you were inside, realized that you’ve completely forgotten the reason[s] why you entered it in the first place? It can happen within a split second, or a nanosecond, at the most inopportune times.
So, you find yourself standing in the middle of this room, quietly asking yourself, “Why did I come in here?” While perplexed, confused and with furrowed brow, you raise your hand to your forehead, hoping that the hand to head contact will release some magical powers for instant recall. Since that may or may not actually work, you are suddenly forced to make another decision. You decide that the best remedy is to attempt a graceful retreat.
Your greatest HOPE for memory recall is to leave the room, head back to wherever you were before this slight of mind occurred. Now that you’re safe, think back and begin again. Rest assured, you’ll be able to jog your memory. It works most of the time. It has in the past, and we know that this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time for an unexpected “senior moment“. What is that technique called anyway?
Well, I have been there more times than I care to remember. What we deem these moments of forgetfulness as indicative of is yet another senior moment. These moments of temporary amnesia plague us than we readily admit to have experienced, but the older we get, the more frequently it seems to happen.
So, is it really a sign telling us that we are getting old? Is it a sign of things to come? Will it get worse before it gets better? Could it mean that I have….Alzheimer’s, senility, absent-mindedness, or just plain old everyday forgetful?
I think that we are so often multi-tasking, wearing so many different hats, juggling duties, and doing so many things at once, that it is inevitable…. system overload….malfunction….ctrl+alt+del…. it catches up with us. Just when we are called to act single-mindedly, focus on one task, and follow through to completion-that’s when ….senior moment!
Moments when your clarity is unclear.
But, there’s one thing that is certain- at those times, we are forced to take a deep breath, and reflect. “Slow down, you move too fast….got to make the morning last....”[“Feelin’ Groovy”-a line from the song]
What about losing your ‘train of thought’ during a conversation! I don’t mean when you are supposed to be actively listening to the person who’s speaking, though. I’m talking about those times when you are the speaker, the person doing the talking.
That’s also just plain old embarrassing, and God forbid it happens while speaking to a professional group, during a meeting at work, or during a job interview. How do you make a graceful comeback and restore composure, or better yet, make your ‘senior moment’ so smoothly interwoven into the established rhythm of your talk that your senior moment becomes practically unnoticed by anyone?
How do you recover? Gracefully, that’s how? We can succumb to this faux pas, and embrace the moment of temporary amnesia-like a brain freeze. Admitting it verbally to your audience is an option, but what do you do after you’ve acknowledged how forgetful you are? How can we make it work for us? What do you do next?
Some people have an uncanny sense of timing, or such incredible rhythmic speech control and the presence of mind[which seems like an oxymoron to a senior moment], that enables them to move right along, without appearing distracted by their loss of focus. More importantly, the overall impact of their message on the listening audience still remains positive. They seem to never ‘miss a beat’.
Some of us can work in a cute or funny joke or a quip that brings about brief laughter from others. Or, we can totally veer off into another direction and interject a new topic, until the original train can be boarded once again to return to the original point derailed by loss of focus. No matter how we choose to recover, the fact remains the same-We’ve just experienced a ‘senior moment’.
Our brain functioning does become somewhat compromised with the ravages of time. When our mental acuity, sharpness and even instant recall diminishes, don’t concede to defeat just yet. Eat nutritious foods, trying to consume as much organically produced varieties of fruits, vegatables, and drink lots of water. But, you knew that already. Take vitamin supplements. You knew that, too.
What is the moral? Well, we must accept the inevitability of the aging process. Continue to challenge yourself with brain teasers, memory games, like Concentration…if you can remember that one. Read, write, try crossword puzzles. The New York Times features terrific ones. Play Jeopardy-the TV game show, like I do, fanatically.
Unless genetically predisposed or diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s Disease, you can be proactive. My grandmother lived well into her 90’s, and remained completely lucid, stuck in her ways, but lucid nonetheless.
As we are now living longer, technology, medicine and science continues to advance. Maybe there will be a pill for this someday, or a vaccine. So, hold on, and don’t fret! Instead, grow old gracefully, and…
Thank God for those senior moments!
Why? Because, it’s important to understand that we all forget things every once in a while. Best of all, when the episodes are over, we can look back at ourselves and have a good laugh!
I say: Don’t sweat the small stuff! Have a good laugh and keep moving forward…open more doors and enter more rooms…just keep going!
By the way, has anyone seen my car keys? C’est la vie!
DIVERSITY University 